Days of Pal—Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen has declared that the Gaza Strip “should remain destroyed for decades,” emphasizing that the Israeli government has no intention of supporting the reconstruction of the territory’s infrastructure after the ongoing war ends.
Cohen made the remarks during an interview with Israeli Channel 14, stating that the Israeli army has two primary objectives in Gaza: the first is to recover the soldiers held captive by Hamas, and the second is to “subdue the movement and weaken it both militarily and politically.”
Cohen’s comments come amid the continuing Israeli escalation in the Gaza Strip, which since October 7 has resulted in the killing and injury of nearly 196,000 Palestinians, most of them children and women, in addition to thousands missing under the rubble and hundreds of thousands displaced. The famine crisis continues to worsen, claiming civilian lives, including dozens of children.
Moreover, Channel 14 also noted that Cohen’s statements coincided with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “historic” visit to the United States, during which he met twice with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House, along with other senior American officials.
The visit did not yield any official announcement regarding a ceasefire in Gaza or the signing of new normalization agreements between the Israeli occupation and Arab or Muslim countries, as had been anticipated.
These Israeli statements also come amid a new round of indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israeli delegations in Doha, Qatar, under Qatari-Egyptian mediation and with U.S. participation, aimed at reaching a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement.
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