Prime Minister Netanyahu: Israel will have “general security responsibilities” for Gaza “indefinitely” after the war

: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel will have “overall security responsibility” over the Gaza Strip “for an indefinite period” after the war against Hamas ends. “I think Israel for an indefinite period will have the overall security responsibility because we’ve seen what happens when we don’t have it. When we don’t have that security responsibility, what we have is the eruption of Hamas terror on a scale that we couldn’t imagine,” he tells ABC News. The stance has been uttered by Israeli officials in recent weeks on condition of anonymity, but Netanyahu now puts the stance on the table himself. It is not clear what Netanyahu has in mind regarding the extent of security responsibility, but Israeli officials have insisted that they don’t desire to occupy Gaza after the war. It follows comments by other Israeli officials who have said that Israel will need to maintain a military presence inside Gaza in order to serve as a buffer protecting Israeli civilians.