Israeli opposition party leader Benny Gantz announced on Tuesday his rejection of the establishment of a Palestinian state and his support for the reoccupation of the Gaza Strip.

This statement represents the latest Israeli challenge to international legitimacy resolutions, which reject Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands and call for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

Gantz spoke at the Makor Rishon conference in the Ofra settlement in the occupied West Bank, according to the settlers' Channel 7.

"Israel cannot allow a direct and significant threat to its citizens on all its borders," said Gantz, a former minister in the war cabinet.

For decades, Israel has occupied territories in Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon, and refuses to withdraw from them and establish an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, along the pre-1967 borders.

Gantz continued: "Therefore, we must control security and maintain freedom of action (aggression) in Gaza, the West Bank, southern Lebanon, and the border area with Syria."

Since October 7, 2023, the Israeli occupation, with American support, has been committing genocidal crimes in Gaza, leaving more than 171,000 Palestinians dead and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 11,000 missing.

In parallel with its war to exterminate Palestinians in their occupied territories, Israel launches almost daily, devastating, bloody attacks on its neighbors, Syria and Lebanon.

Gantz said, "Anyone who talks about (establishing) a Palestinian state or withdrawing (from occupied territories) is simply detached from the security reality."

Since the start of the genocide in Gaza, Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court, have declared their rejection of the establishment of a Palestinian state and affirmed their commitment to annexing the occupied West Bank to Israel.

Gantz added: "In one of the first cabinet meetings, I was the one who raised the need to seize (occupy) lands in Gaza."

During the same conference, Israeli President Isaac Herzog emphasized "the importance, magnificence, and prosperity of the settlement project, and the extent to which the settlements are a protective wall for Israel in every sense of the word," he said.

Israel previously occupied Gaza in the June 5, 1967 war, then withdrew unilaterally in 2005, dismantling settlements it had established in the Palestinian Strip.

Israel has been blockading Gaza for 18 years, leaving approximately 1.5 million Palestinians out of a population of approximately 2.4 million homeless after their homes were destroyed in the war of extermination. The Strip is suffering from famine due to Tel Aviv's closure of the crossings to humanitarian aid.