Katz initially backtracked after criticism of similar statements. But now he said: “I never put the car in reverse.”Image: AP
December 25, 2025, 3:09 p.mDecember 25, 2025, 3:10 p.m
According to the defense minister, Israel will never completely withdraw its troops from the Gaza Strip. “Israel will never withdraw from Gaza. There will be a security zone within the Gaza Strip, a sizeable security zone,” Israel Katz said at a conference in the settler-friendly newspaper Makor Rishon.
This also applies in the event of a transition to the second phase of US President Donald Trump’s peace plan and the disarmament of the Islamist terrorist organization Hamas, said Katz. The security zone should run within the Gaza Strip, he emphasized. In the future, Israeli settlement centers could be built in the northern part of the coastal area, which the security zone would then protect, he said.
The politician from the right-wing conservative ruling party Likud once again contradicted Trump’s peace plan, which envisages a gradual withdrawal of Israeli troops from the coastal strip. After criticism following similar statements on Tuesday, he initially backtracked. At the conference, however, he said: “I never put things in reverse.”
Trump’s plan states that the Israeli army should gradually withdraw from the Gaza Strip and that an international force should be responsible for stabilization in the future. Israel is granted an unspecified security presence along its external borders (“perimeter security presence”), which could remain in place until the Gaza Strip no longer poses a terrorist threat. (sda/dpa)