Exclusive: Israel has no plans for long-term control of Gaza, FM Sa'ar tells Euronews

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Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said on Monday that his country doesn't have "any intention" of controlling the Gaza Strip long term.

"We don't have any intention to do so," Sa’ar said in an exclusive interview with Euronews. "With regard to the Gaza Strip, we have only security concerns."

Sa'ar's comments seem to contradict Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who in May said Israel would take control of all of Gaza after the war ends.

"We [will] implement (President) Trump's plan, it is a good plan and makes a difference, and it means something very simple, that the residents of Gaza who want to leave can leave," Netanyahu said, referring to a proposal floated by Trump of resettling all of Gaza's population in other countries.

But Sa'ar added that the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which currently controls the enclave, "cannot be part of the future of Gaza."  

"If Hamas is ready to lay down its arms, if they are ready to demilitarise the Gaza Strip, we can do it on a political path."

Sa’ar also slammed as "ridiculous" criticism from some Western countries that Israel's military operation in Gaza has been disproportionate.

"What would you say about the Western attack against ISIS that destroyed ISIS? Was it proportionate?" he asked, referring to the so-called Islamic state that once ruled large parts of Syria and Iraq.

Talking about the 7 October 2023 Hamas terrorist attack on southern Israel that prompted the retaliatory military operation in Gaza, he said: "Israel should agree to the existence of this terrorist state, one mile from its communities, what are its proportions in this case? These terrorist states should be eliminated as a state."

Around 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, were killed in that attack, and 250 others taken as hostages back to Gaza, of which 20 are believed to still be alive.

The Hamas-run health ministry says more than 58,000 Palestinians have been killed in the subsequent Israeli military operation.

A US-sponsored 60-day ceasefire deal for Gaza, which would see Hamas free the remaining hostages, has so far failed to materialise.

Israel has indicated it would be willing to end all hostilities if Hamas surrendered its weapons and renounced governing Gaza.

Sa’ar is in Brussels to participate in the EU-Southern Neighbourhood ministerial meeting, a gathering aimed at deepening EU cooperation with Israel as well as nine other southern partners, including Palestine, Syria and Libya. 

It is the first time that Israel and Palestine will be represented at a high level in Brussels since the war in Gaza started. 

Both sides have indicated there is no plan to meet. Direct negotiations between the Palestinian Authority, the government of the West Bank, and Israel have been at a standstill for more than a decade, with many observers questioning the feasibility of a two-state solution.

Sa’ar’s visit also coincides with a meeting of the 27 EU foreign ministers on Tuesday, which is aimed at discussing an exhaustive list of 10 possibilities for the EU to respond to Israel's breach of the EU-Israel Association Agreement over its failure to respect Palestinian human rights. 

It also takes place a few days after a recent agreement brokered by the EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, to improve the flow of aid to Gaza.

Sa'ar defended the agreement with Kallas, saying there had already been fuel entering humanitarian facilities like hospitals or water installations in Gaza.

"But the only restriction or the only problem we have here is that Hamas cannot take advantage of the aid as they did during the last 21 months," he said.

In its last humanitarian update on 9 July, the UN estimated that one-third of Gazans are going entire days without eating, and more people are at risk of starvation. Health services face an imminent shutdown due to a lack of fuel.

Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of confiscating aid destined for civilians.

The minister also called the EU's list of options in retaliation for Israel's breach of the EU-Israel Association Agreement "extremely distorted."

Those options include suspending visa-free travel and blocking imports from Jewish settlements, according to a document issued by Kallas' office, seen by Euronews.

"Even though we thought this process was not fair, it is extremely distorted, we gave answers and we brought facts," Sa’ar said. "I hope that also tomorrow, those member states that think it's not in the interest of the EU to go against Israel will prevail."

Here is the transcript of the full interview:

Euronews: Minister, let me start with your visit to Brussels. This is the first time Israeli and Palestinian sides are represented at a high level here in Brussels since the Hamas October 7 terror attacks and then the subsequent Israeli military action in Gaza. What are Israel's expectations for your visit here?

Gideon Sa'ar: I was invited by the High Representative and Mediterranean commissioner for this meeting, which I see as important in the context of EU relations with Middle Eastern and North African countries. And it's a good opportunity to exchange views on partnership and what can make a better partnership, and of course, I also will use it to have bilateral meetings and also to meet High Representative Kaja Kallas, we are in close contact on a regular basis. But basically, I think it's a good idea to bring the EU with Southern and neighbouring states to this kind of meeting so as I see it is a good initiative.

Euronews: Minister, you said you have a number of meetings planned, including with the EU High Representative. Do you have a meeting planned with Palestinian Foreign Minister Varsen Aghabekian while in Brussels?

Sa’ar: No, it is published right now that they said they will not meet me, but we never asked for a meeting, so it's quite strange altogether. Unfortunately, we have very low expectations from the PA (Palestinian Authority), which still sponsors terrorism, makes payments for terrorists and terrorist families, accordingly to the crime they committed, and also continues with the incitement in textbooks, schools, kindergartens, mosques and media. And there we learned a long time ago that they don't have any will to change these basic things, which are the most relevant things for a different future.

Euronews: Minister, you said that there was no request for this kind of a bilateral meeting from the Palestinian Foreign Minister. Would you be open to this possibility if there were a request?

Sa’ar: I told you that they published that they will not [ask us], I will send you the announcement they made, that they will not meet someone from the occupation country or something like that.

So, as you understand, it's not a question of being open or not being open. They announced that. We hadn't announced anything, and as a matter of fact, it is not so important and not something I even thought about before seeing the announcement a few minutes ago.

Euronews: Minister, regarding Israel's cooperation with the European Union, the EU High Representative Kaja Kallas said on Thursday that the EU has negotiated what you called the significant improvement of humanitarian aid access into Gaza, including an increase in food trucks and an agreement to protect the lives of aid workers. Now, how is the implementation happening? Is Israel willing to improve the humanitarian aid access into Gaza?

Sa’ar: First of all, we had a cabinet decision we made nine days ago, and it followed the needs on the ground. And we addressed the needs as we analysed them. This decision was made after a dialogue we had with the EU. And those issues that the EU mentioned were reasonable and connected to our analysis of the situation on the ground as well.

We don't have any problem promoting this, and we promote that all together. For example, for a couple of days, fuel has been entering humanitarian facilities like hospitals or water installations. And of course, there were some other requests which we couldn't agree with, but basically everything reasonable and needed, we are open. The only restriction or the only problem we have here is that Hamas cannot take advantage of the aid as they did during the last 21 months and that became an important financial resource for Hamas in Gaza and this is of course very dangerous because it can make this war eternal and I mean, we don't want this war to be eternal. So we must cut between Hamas and humanitarian aid, delivering the aid directly to the people or to the places where it is needed and not to Hamas. If this is the approach, we are always open to dialogue. I suggested this dialogue even before the FAC (Foreign Affairs Council) took place in May, and I was glad that after the last FAC, in June, Kaja Kallas agreed and we moved forward with that. And as I said previously, we are already implementing.

Euronews: And yet, Minister, the EU's top diplomat is also set to offer a list of ten possibilities for the European Union to respond to Israel's actions in Gaza during the meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council this week in Brussels. And some of these options also include suspending visa-free travel and blocking imports from the Jewish settlements in response to what Brussels calls Israel's breach of the EU-Israel Association agreement. Now, the European Union is very tough in this case. How do you respond to that?

Sa’ar: First of all, the EU never used this Article 2 with any kind of states or entities. I would recommend that you consider sanctions against the PA because they are sponsoring terrorism and encouraging terrorism, and due to the incitement they are still doing in their education system. Anyhow, these efforts or these attempts to take steps against Israel were opposed by member states, and this is why they were not forwarded.

And right now, I believe there is even a stronger opposition among member states to do it after it was proved. A dialogue with Israel is effective, and if it is a true dialogue, we are always open, and of course, we are a sovereign state, but we always act according to our national interests, and we will continue to do that.

But, frankly, our relations with the EU are important to us, and this is why, even though we thought this process was not fair, it is extremely distorted, we gave answers, and we brought facts that demonstrated it is singling out Israel in an unfair way, and it is not constructive. But we always prefer to engage, and this is what we did. And I hope that also tomorrow, those member states that thought it was not in the interest of the EU to go against Israel will prevail.

Euronews: Minister, apart from the EU, there are other bodies like, for example, the United Nations that have expressed criticism of Israel for blocking access to the humanitarian aid distribution in Gaza. If I am to quote the UN numbers, they said as many as 800 people have died at aid centres in the past six weeks, with access to humanitarian organisations blocked. What is your response to this?

Sa’ar: It is an example of unfair criticism due to the fact that those who are working, threatening the people, shooting at people not to come to these humanitarian centres are Hamas. Where is the criticism against Hamas that does that? I mean, Israel facilitated the entrance of this initiative in order to help the people in need, in order to empower the quantities and give it directly to the people.

This is an example of how Israel is still engaging in facilitating humanitarian aid in very complicated circumstances. And the one that tried to block it, tried to threaten people, tried to kill people, killed people, killed humanitarian aid workers, including Palestinians, killed Americans that were involved, is Hamas. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised because the UN (United Nations), which we have known for a long time, is a very anti-Israeli biased organisation, and those who have a certain moral approach, like, for example, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, expressed that some days ago with sanctions against one of its staffers [U.N. Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese].

And therefore, anyone should check the situation on the ground. While checking the situation on the ground, anyone should understand that the only one responsible for this war is Hamas, not only because they initiated the war on 7 October, but also because they are responsible for its continuation. They still hold 50 Israeli hostages, refusing to release them, torturing them, preventing access of the Red Cross, and refusing to lay down their arms. So those who are responsible for the suffering of Israelis and Palestinians alike, and the casualties of Israelis and Palestinians, are Hamas.

Euronews: Minister, let me ask you, since the 7 October and the Hamas attack, there has also been a lot of criticism regarding how proportionate the Israeli response is. Do you still see it as proportionate?

Sa’ar: It's a ridiculous criticism. What would you say about the Western attacks against ISIS that destroyed the ISIS state? Was it proportionate? What is the context? The context is a response to the massacre of 1,200 people. Israel should agree to the existence of this terrorist state, one mile from its communities? What is proportionate in this case? These terrorist states should be eliminated as states. And we are fighting a well-established army, to say it's a terror organisation is not correct. It's a terrorist state.

And here, if someone can criticise Israel, it is for how this entity was able to exist near Israel for two decades from the day that Hamas took over the Gaza Strip and threw people from the roofs there, because they attacked Israel time and again with missiles since then. Do you imagine any other country would do differently? Would you imagine any other country would deal with that gently? It's a hypocritical criticism, it's an outrageous criticism, which we reject.

And by the way, from a proportional point of view, there is no other war. If you check the casualties among terrorists and civilians, I believe it's the best in terms of collateral damage. No army in the world had better proportions in terms of terrorists to civilian casualties than the IDF. None of them, whether democratic or undemocratic.

Euronews: Minister, with the Israeli operation since 7 October...

Sa’ar: There is no Israeli operation. Since 7 October, Israel, let's put the fact that you are distorting time and again. Israel was attacked from 7 October from all fronts. It was attacked by Lebanon, by Hezbollah. It was attacked from the Gaza Strip by Hamas. It has been attacked by Iran twice. It's been attacked by the Houthis from Yemen, which are 2,000 kilometres from our border; it was attacked by the Shiite militias from Iraq. Israel responded, retaliated against attacks in all of these fronts, never initiating a war on any of these fronts. Those are the simple facts.

Euronews: Minister, how do you see when the retaliation will end?

Sa’ar: It's not a retaliation, it's not retaliation. There is an international consensus: Hamas cannot control the Gaza Strip and cannot be part of the future of the Gaza Strip. Anyone in the world says that, so the question is only how it can be achieved if it can't be achieved by political means. We prefer that. War is never an ideology. Military means can be used when there are no other alternatives. If Hamas is ready to lay down its arms, if they are ready to demilitarise the Gaza Strip, we can do it on a political path. Until now, they hadn't agreed to that.

So this is why we have to continue under a very complicated situation, because we need to do our utmost not to minimise the number of civilian casualties. We have to take into consideration that they are still holding, in their hands, in the tunnels, our hostages. And of course, these two facts complicate the situation, but basically, the war can end tomorrow, and it could have ended yesterday. The only question is whether this international objective or this objective agreed by anyone from the international community will be achieved. When it is achieved, the war will end.

Euronews: Let me ask you briefly now, regarding the situation with the hostages. According to one of the recent polls, 74% of Israelis back an agreement with Hamas that would release all of the hostages at once in exchange for an end to the Gaza War. What the understanding now is that the negotiations are on for the partial release or the release of 10 living hostages and the remains of 18 hostages.

Sa’ar: We will surely agree to release all the hostages. The issue is, of course, different. The issue is that Hamas is trying to dictate the terms to end this war by using the hostages. This is one of the reasons they took the hostages in the first place. So they make certain demands that they want to dictate to enforce their will upon us, and this will not happen. Of course, we will prefer to have a full deal, but we will not agree to the conditions. One of the conditions of Hamas is that they are not ready to demilitarise, that they want to continue to have their arms. And this will result in them being the strongest military force in the Gaza Strip after the war.

And of course, if that is the case, they will continue the war against Israel. And that will hurt not only Israeli security, but also regional stability, because you already saw that their attack on 7 October caused the regional war. We agree to any kind of deal in the context of releasing our hostages. We are not ready for Hamas to use the hostages to impose upon Israel conditions of surrender.

Euronews: Minister, finally, if and when Hamas is demilitarised and disarmed, who will control Gaza?

Sa’ar: We don't have any intention to do so. With regard to the Gaza Strip, we have only security concerns. I remind you that we withdrew from the Gaza Strip 20 years ago in 2005. We dismantled all our settlements in the Gaza Strip. We dismantle all our military bases from there. We also dismantled even tombs from the cemeteries there and transferred them, and there was no reason for the Gaza Strip then to have a war against Israel.

Euronews: Minister, if I remember correctly, you were against that withdrawal in 2005.

Sa’ar: Of course, I was against it. I think unilateral withdrawal was catastrophic, and that was proven in that case. Because one and a half years after our withdrawal, Hamas took over the Gaza Strip. It is very hard, even those who supported that at the time agree that it was a mistake, and of course, I'm proud that I voted against it, but the question is, what Israel did was that we withdrew from the Gaza Strip. This is a fact that international public opinion will forget that we did that fully, fully. So what was the response? The response was, they built the largest terror kingdom on earth, a few miles from our communities. So I repeat, we don't have any other interests there, but security concerns. And this is what we will enforce in any future arrangements.