Hamas must be eliminated, but  Israel shouldn’t  reoccupy Gaza-Biden

 The United States  President , Joe Biden, has  said  that Israel must eliminate the Hamas terror group, but not  to  reoccupy the Gaza Strip as that would be a “big mistake.”

 According to The Times of Israel, he spoke  in an interview released on Sunday, as Israeli troops prepared for a ground invasion in the territory.

Speaking to CBS news programme “60 Minutes,” Biden also said a path should remain toward Palestinian statehood, while expressing confidence that Israeli forces would try to minimize civilian casualties and take steps to avoid a dire humanitarian crisis in the Strip, days after Israel ordered some 1 million Gazans in the northern part of the enclave to decamp for the southern half.

Israel is seeking to eradicate Hamas in reaction to the terror group’s brutal rampage across southern on October 7, in which 1,300 people — over 1,000 of them civilians — were killed and at least 155 more taken hostage to Gaza. Among the victims were men, women, and children, including dozens of babies.

Some of the victims were mutilated and there were reportedly incidents of rape, and torture of children. In some location, entire families were murdered. Thousands more were injured, hundreds of them seriously. Hamas has continued to rain rockets on southern and central Israel, causing further injuries and deaths.

Israel has retaliated with artillery and airstrikes, and officials from the Hamas-controlled health ministry estimate that more than 2,600 Palestinian have died. Israel says it is targeting terrorist infrastructure and all areas where Hamas operates or hides out, while issuing evacuation warnings to civilians in regions it plans to attack.

Biden, who has staunchly backed Israel in the wake of the Hamas murder spree, and is reportedly mulling a visit there in coming days, said the terror group’s “barbarism [was] as consequential as the Holocaust.”

 “I think Israel has to respond. They have to go after Hamas,” he said. “Hamas is a bunch of cowards. They’re hiding behind the civilians.”

Invading and “taking out the extremists” is a “necessary requirement,” he added.

Asked if Hamas must be eliminated entirely, he replied: “Yes I do.”

However, asked if he would support any occupation of Gaza by Israel, Biden replied: “I think it’d be a big mistake.”

“Look, what happened in Gaza, in my view, is Hamas, and the extreme elements of Hamas, don’t represent all the Palestinian people. And I think that it would be a mistake for Israel to occupy Gaza again.”

Israel took control of the Gaza Strip during the 1967 Six-Day-War, then unilaterally left in 2005, enabling the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority to take control of the enclave. A year later, in response to rocket fire, Israel imposed an air, land and sea blockade on the 140-square-mile (362-square-kilometer) strip of land, which is also bordered by Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea. Egypt also maintains the blockade.

After Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections, a power struggle developed, leading to open conflict in 2007 between Hamas and Fatah, the party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Over 100 people were killed in a bloody coup that saw Hamas seize control of Gaza, which it has controlled since. The Islamist Hamas, founded in the late 1980s, has been declared a terrorist organization by Israel, the US, the UK, Canada and the European Union. Some other countries have designated only its armed wing as a terror group.

Israel’s ambassador to the US, Michael Herzog, also told the network “we have no desire to control the lives of over two million Palestinian.”

Israel has not said who it envisions replacing Hamas in Gaza, where the terror group has ruled with an iron fist since taking over in 2007.

The US president said he did not think Israel would be open to pursuing a two-state solution with the Palestinians as it heads toward war, “but I think Israel understands that a significant portion of Palestinian people do not share the views of Hamas and Hezbollah.”

“There needs to be a Palestinian authority. There needs to be a path to a Palestinian state,” he continued, reiterating the long-standing US call for a two-state solution.

From The Times of Israel