Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's biggest challenger has expressed support for evacuating Israeli settlements in his first interview since announcing his candidacy for April elections.
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"We need to find a way in which we are not controlling other people," Benny Gantz told daily newspaper Yediot Ahronot, while maintaining that security is Israel's primary concern.
Gantz praised the way in which Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005.
"It was a legal move, which was accepted by the Israeli government and carried out by the Israel Defence Forces and the settlers in a painful but good way. We have to take the lessons and implement them in other places," he said.
The subject of the Gaza disengagement is divisive in Israel. The Islamist Hamas movement seized sole control of the enclave a year later and rocket attacks against Israel intensified in the years that followed, prompting Israel to impose a blockade on the strip.
The pullout of Gaza was unilateral, but Gantz's party clarified after the interview that "in a Gantz government there will not be unilateral moves with regard to the evacuation of settlements."
Gantz is a former army chief of staff and chairman of the Israel Resilience Party, which was launched in December.
Responding to his interview, Netanyahu's Likud party said: "We told you: Gantz will form a leftist government with the help of a bloc that will rely on [Ahmad] Tibi and the Joint List," referring to a prominent Arab leader and an alliance of Arab parties.
Australian Associated Press
