Any measure by Israel to occupy the Gaza Strip again would be a “big mistake,” Joe Biden, the President of the United States, said in an interview released on Sunday, as Israeli armies readied for a ground invasion.
Israel, aiming retaliation for an invasion by Hamas on October 7, has declared war on the Palestinian militant group, launching a persistent bombing campaign and cautioning more than a million people in northern Gaza to move south ahead of the operation.
When Biden was asked by CBS news program 60 Minutes if he would back any occupation of Gaza by the American supporter, he answered: “I think it’d be a big mistake.”
Hamas “don’t represent all the Palestinian people,” he continued.
But raiding and “taking out the extremists” is a “necessary requirement,” he added.
The Hamas invasion witnessed fighters shoot, stab, and burn to death more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians. Israel’s reprisal assault in the days since has flattened neighborhoods and killed at least 2,670 people in Gaza, the majority ordinary Palestinians.
Israel has encountered serious warnings about the implications of placing boots on the ground in Gaza, with assistance groups warning of a humanitarian disaster, worries of the battle escalating, and the challenges of separating militants from civilians in the needy, densely occupied territory.
Israel first occupied Gaza during the 1967 Six-Day War, and it was only fully returned to Palestinians in 2005.
Israel, a year later, imposed an air, land, and sea blockade on the 140 square miles (362 square kilometers) strip of land, which is also bordered by Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea.
Israel, in 2007, tightened the blockade after Hamas took control of Gaza from the secular Fatah movement of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
When he was asked if Hamas — whom Biden described as “a bunch of cowards” — must be eliminated, he replied: “Yes I do.”
“But there needs to be a Palestinian authority. There needs to be a path to a Palestinian state,” he continued, restating the long-standing US call for a two-state solution.
Scott Pelley, a 60 Minutes journalist, also asked Biden if he could foresee US troops joining the war.
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Biden, who pulled US troops out of Afghanistan and has urged that none will be sent to aid Ukraine as it holds off a Russian invasion, replied.
