Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Israeli Prime Minister (PM) Benjamin Netanyahu said his party was considering temporarily stopping the war in the Gaza Strip to facilitate the entry of aid including the release of hostages.

In an announcement on Tuesday (7/11/2023), Netanyahu said he was open to the option of a “small pause in fighting” in Gaza, but rejected calls for a ceasefire despite mounting international pressure.

“Tactical pauses – one hour here, one hour there – we have experienced it before,” Netanyahu said in an interview with ABC News media, quoted by Reuters.

“I think we will check the circumstances to allow humanitarian goods to come in, or our hostages, individual hostages to leave,” he added.

Netanyahu said a general ceasefire would hamper his country’s war efforts. However, he claims that stopping fighting for humanitarian reasons, an idea supported by the United States (US), will be considered based on the circumstances.

“But I don’t think there will be a general ceasefire,” he added.

Netanyahu also said that when the conflict is over “Israel will assume overall security responsibility (in Gaza)”. This means that Israel will be the governing authority for the region.

On the other hand, Palestinian Authority PM Mohammad Shtayyeh rejected Israel’s proposed ceasefire. This is because as a condition for ending the war, Israel wants to form a transitional authority to govern the region.

Shtayyeh said the Palestinian Authority would not return to governing Gaza after the Israel-Hamas conflict without a comprehensive agreement that includes the West Bank as a Palestinian state.

The prime minister since 2019 has also emphasized that he will not cooperate without returning to a genuine peace process that produced two sovereign countries.

“To ask the Palestinian Authority to go to Gaza and run Gaza’s affairs without a political solution for the West Bank, as if the Palestinian Authority were going to ride in Israeli F-16s or tanks?” said Shtayyeh, as quoted by The Guardian.

He added that what is needed now is a comprehensive vision of peace. “The West Bank needs a solution, and then connecting Gaza with the region within the framework of a two-state solution,” he said.

Israel’s own plans are said to have the possibility of involving Arab countries, leading to the restoration of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which was ousted from Gaza in the Hamas coup in 2007.

Shtayyeh argues that Israel’s plan to run the region in place of Hamas gives the international community rare leverage to return to the two-state solution that Netanyahu has systematically dismantled during his tenure.

[Gambas:Video CNBC]

(tfa/wur)