Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday, ahead of a key cabinet meeting on the next stage of the Gaza war, that Israel intends to take control of the entire Strip, then hand it over to an unspecified Arab governing force.

The premier said a “detailed plan” will yet be developed for this post-Hamas government, and that it will not place Israel in control of the Strip as a civil government, nor allow the Palestinian Authority to play a role.

“Our plan is not to occupy or annex Gaza. Our goal is to destroy Hamas and get our hostages back, and then hand over Gaza to a transitory government,” Netanyahu said to a group of visiting Indian journalists, according to the English-language CNN-News18.

“We will never hand [Gaza] over to the Palestinian Authority or Hamas. We will provide overall security. There will be a security perimeter provided by us,” the premier added.

Netanyahu’s comments were met with wholesale rejection from the Hamas terror group, and led Jordan to stress that it would only accept any decisions on the future of Gaza agreed to by the Palestinians.

The prime minister’s remarks came shortly before the security cabinet convened Thursday evening to discuss a controversial plan to take over and occupy the entire Gaza Strip.

Israel currently controls about 75% of the enclave, but has stayed out of areas where the Hamas terror group is believed to be holding hostages, and has refrained from asserting any civilian governance over the Strip’s population, who have been ordered to evacuate from all of the areas where ground troops are operating.

“We want to end the war very soon. It will be over speedily. If Hamas concedes and lays down their arms and frees hostages, it will be over tomorrow. Even Palestinians in Gaza are fighting Hamas,” the prime minister said.

Speaking to Fox News’s Bill Hemmer immediately before the cabinet meeting on Thursday, Netanyahu said: “We want to liberate ourselves and liberate the people of Gaza from the awful terror of Hamas.”

Asked if Israel will take over the entire 26-mile strip, Netanyahu said: “We intend to.” But, he added, “We don’t want to keep it. We want to have a security perimeter, but we don’t want to govern it.”

The prime minister said that Israel wants to “hand it over to Arab forces that will govern it properly, without threatening us, and giving the Gazans a good life.”

In the interview, Netanyahu denied any intent to cause civilian suffering, noting Israel’s efforts to get humanitarian aid into the Strip.

He also explained that “the reason you see the flattened buildings [in Gaza] is because Hamas booby traps every single building,” and that when the terror group’s underground tunnels are detonated, they take down buildings above them, emphasizing that all such buildings are empty, following broad evacuation orders.

When Hemmer asked if US President Donald Trump had given Jerusalem a green light to take control of the whole Strip, Netanyahu declined to give a clear yes, responding: “He just says, ‘I know Israel will do what it has to do.'”

“We haven’t got into that kind of discussion,” Netanyahu continued, but he said the US and Israel had discussed a humanitarian surge leading up to a major operation, and certain principles, but not a detailed plan, for a post-Hamas Gaza.

With respect to the humanitarian surge, Netanyahu told Fox, “I want the population to be in safe zones, to have food, water, sewage, electricity, medical help.”

With respect to the day after, he said Jerusalem and Washington agree it “has to have certain principles,” but added, “I’m not talking about a detailed plan yet, because I think that will be developed.”

Netanyahu listed five principles: Hamas’s disarmament; Gaza’s demilitarization; the release of all the hostages; Israeli security responsibility; and a non-Israeli civilian governing authority “that basically is willing to live in peace with Israel and give Gazans a different future.”

Hamas, in a statement, called Netanyahu’s comments “a blatant coup” against the negotiation process.

“Netanyahu’s plans to expand the aggression confirm beyond any doubt that he seeks to get rid of his captives and sacrifice them,” the statement said.

The terror group added that it would view any governing force formed in line with Netanyahu’s proposal as an “occupying force linked to Israel.”

A Jordanian official told Reuters on Thursday, following Netanyahu’s comments, that Amman “will only support what Palestinians agree and decide on.”

“Security in Gaza must be done through legitimate Palestinian institutions,” the source said. “Arabs will not be agreeing to Netanyahu’s policies nor clean his mess.”

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid decried Netanyahu’s comments Thursday, saying in a statement: “What Netanyahu is proposing is another war, more dead hostages, more [fallen soldiers] and tens of billions of shekels of taxpayer money that will be poured into the delusions of [National Security Minister] Itamar Ben Gvir and [Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich.”

The Netanyahu-backed Gaza occupation plan would reportedly begin with taking over Gaza City, in the north of the Strip, as well as camps in the central Strip, driving around half of the enclave’s population southward toward the Mawasi humanitarian zone.

Despite a few ministers potentially opposed to the plan, reports have said Netanyahu will likely secure a majority within the high-level security cabinet to support it.

The Israel Defense Forces brass are said to be against the plan, with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir reportedly warning that “occupying the Strip will drag Israel into a black hole.”

Some hostage families have also sounded an alarm, noting that expanded operations would put the surviving captives in jeopardy.

The ongoing war in Gaza started with the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, massacre, in which some 5,600 terrorists invaded Israel, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages to the enclave.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 60,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 20,000 combatants in battle as of January and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 onslaught.

Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools and mosques.

Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 459. The toll includes two police officers and three Defense Ministry civilian contractors.