Netanyahu suggests Israel could reoccupy Gaza

Benjamin Netanyahu has suggested Israel could reoccupy the Gaza Strip to rid the besieged enclave of Hamas.

Speaking to a group of foreign diplomats, the prime minister said the ongoing Israeli bombing in Gaza sought to "degrade Hamas' capabilities, their terror capabilities, and degrade their will".

But, he added, further escalation was possible.

"There are only two ways that you can deal with them," Netanyahu told the ambassadors at a military base in Tel Aviv.

"You can either conquer them, and that's always an open possibility, or you can deter them, and we are engaged right now in forceful deterrence, but I have to say we don't rule out anything."

Israeli efforts to settle the Gaza Strip, which it occupied in the 1967 Middle East war, were largely unsuccessful, and in August 2005 Israel began to pull its settlers and troops from the coastal territory.

Only 8,000 Israelis had settled in Gaza, a far cry from the hundreds of thousands in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Israel and Egypt then imposed a blockade on Gaza after Hamas took power in 2008 - a crippling siege that is ongoing.