Israel Tries Pilot Program to Replace Hamas with Local Leaders in Gaza City District

The pilot program in the Zeitoun neighborhood will include ending incitement in the schools • IDF building security road bisecting the Strip. 

Israel is preparing to carry out a pilot program that will see local authorities replace the Hamas terrorist group in governing the southern Gaza City neighborhood of Zeitoun, Channel 12 reported.

The military began a major aerial and ground offensive in the district on Monday night to clear it of terrorists ahead of the initiative. Led by the 162nd Division, Israeli forces killed and captured dozens of terrorists and confiscated a large amount of ammunition.

According to the report, Israel’s goal is for community leaders to manage the reception and distribution of humanitarian aid to establish an alternative to Hamas in the northern Gaza Strip. Security forces will attempt to prevent the terrorist group from interfering with this process.

Gazan representatives recently met with Israeli officials to discuss the plan.

Notably, the plan does not involve a return to the north for the tens of thousands of Gazans who evacuated to a humanitarian zone in the southern Strip at the behest of the Israeli army. Instead, the pilot will be carried out with the residents who remained there.

Additionally, the pilot includes replacing the school curricula with textbooks that do not promote violent rejection of Israel and hatred towards Jews. Israeli leaders have repeatedly stressed the importance of deradicalizing the Gaza population, including moderating the educational system, after Hamas is defeated.

Israeli War Cabinet member Benny Gantz on Wednesday evening referred to an international pilot in which moderate Arab countries would establish a civil administration to manage the Strip after the war ends, while Israel maintains full security control.

This civil administration would likely include “local Palestinians supported by some sort of regional committee or arrangement,” according to Gantz.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has previously said that he wants to see local Palestinian community leaders govern Gaza instead of Hamas or the Palestinian Authority.

“Oslo was the mother of all sins. The difference between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority is only that Hamas wants to destroy us here and now, and the P.A. wants to do it in stages,” Netanyahu said in December.

JNS - Jewish News Syndicate. Video source - IDF.