Tel Aviv, Aug. 8 -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel intends to take control of the entire Gaza Strip to remove Hamas and ensure the country's security, before handing it over to an unspecified Arab governing force, Fox News reported.

Speaking to Fox News on Thursday, ahead of a key cabinet meeting on the next stage of the Gaza war, Netanyahu stressed that Israel does not plan to retain civilian governance over the territory.

"We intend to, in order to assure our security, remove Hamas there, enable the population to be free of Gaza, and to pass it civilian governance," Netanyahu said as per Fox News.

"We don't want to keep it. We want to have a security perimeter, but we don't want to govern it. We don't ...