Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu named three requirements for peace after the Hamas terrorist attacks of Oct. 7 in a recent op-ed.
"Hamas must be destroyed, Gaza must be demilitarized, and Palestinian society must be deradicalized," Netanyahu wrote in an op-ed published Monday in The Wall Street Journal.
Netanyahu wrote that the elimination of Hamas will be in "full compliance with international law," despite difficulties posed by Hamas's strategy of using "Palestinian civilians as human shields."
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The White House has previously confirmed that Hamas uses Gaza's largest hospital, al-Shifa, as an operations base. Hamas also uses the tunnels beneath the hospital for military operations and to maintain control over hostages.
"To render this cruel and cynical strategy ineffective," Netanyahu continued, "the international community must place the blame for these casualties squarely on Hamas. It must recognize that Israel is fighting the bigger battle of the civilized world against barbarism."
Netanyahu also debunked claims that the "Palestinian Authority" will demilitarize Gaza as a "pipe dream," explaining that the governing body "currently funds and glorifies terrorism in Judea and Samaria and educates Palestinian children to seek the destruction of Israel."
"For the foreseeable future Israel will have to retain overriding security responsibility over Gaza," Netanyahu wrote.
Netanyahu also pointed to the importance of education in reducing antisemitism and outright calls for violence against Jews as part of a larger policy of deradicalization in Gaza.
"Schools must teach children to cherish life rather than death, and imams must cease to preach for the murder of Jews," he wrote. "Palestinian civil society needs to be transformed so that its people support fighting terrorism rather than funding it."
Gaza City mayor Yahya R. Sarraj wrote an op-ed accusing Israel of causing "the deaths of more than 20,000 people" in a guest essay for The New York Times.
The guest essay, released on Christmas Eve, listed examples of destruction in Gaza after Hamas terrorists killed and kidnapped Israeli, American and other civilians on Oct. 7.
"The unrelenting destruction of Gaza — its iconic symbols, its beautiful seafront, its libraries and archives and whatever economic prosperity it had — has broken my heart," Sarraj wrote.
Fox News' Brandon Gillespie contributed to this report.
