Netanyahu publicly rejects US push for Palestinian state after Gaza war

Increasing tensions between Israel and the US have burst into the open, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu angrily rejected any moves to establish a Palestinian state when the conflict in Gaza ends.

Despite some lukewarm endorsements ofa two-state solution across his political career, Mr Netanyahu has mostly sought to obstruct the idea, but this is his sharpest rebuttal of what is foreign policy for staunch ally the US. It comes as Mr Netanyahu is under increasing international pressure to rein in Israel’s military operations in Gaza, that health officials in the Hamas-run territory has left almost 25,000 Palestinians dead.

The prime minister repeatedly said on Thursday that Israel would not halt its offensive in Gaza until the goal of “absolute victory” over Hamas is fulfilled. Mr Netanyahu, whose domestic political support has plummeted since Hamas’s 7 October attack on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 Israelis and saw another 240 people taken hostage, appeared to explicitly tie his own political survival to operations inside Gaza.

In a nationally televised news conference, Mr Netanyahu said: «We will not settle for anything short of an absolute victory.»

He also said Israel must have security control west of the River Jordan, which would include the territory of any future Palestinian state. «This is a necessary condition, and it conflicts with the idea of [Palestinian] sovereignty. What to do? I tell this truth to our American friends, and I also stopped the attempt to impose a reality on us that would harm Israel's security,» he said.

He added that the offensive would take «many more months» and would include the return of the remaining 130 Israeli hostages. Israel's war on Hamas in Gaza has uprooted