Israel’s security cabinet has approved a plan to take over Gaza City, Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has said.

Ahead of the Security Cabinet meeting, which began Thursday and ran through the night, Prime Minister Netanyahu said Israel planned to retake control over the entire territory and eventually hand it off to friendly Arab forces opposed to Hamas.

Netanyahu said that “to ensure our security”, Israel planned to remove Hamas and pass Gaza to civilian governance, saying his plan would “liberate the people of Gaza from the awful terror of Hamas.”

However, he told Fox News Israel does “not want to keep it”.

“We want to have a security perimeter. We don’t want to govern it. We don’t want to be there as a governing body,” he said.

Experts say the plan set to be approved today, which is

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