US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has warned that Israel cannot reoccupy Gaza after the war with Hamas ends,
BBC reports.
Mr Blinken also insisted Hamas could not continue to rule there as it risked a repetition of the 7 October attacks.
He said there should be no forced displacement, blockade or reduction of territory, and that the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority should govern.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel will have "overall security responsibility" for Gaza indefinitely.
He did not elaborate on what that would entail when he made the comment in an TV interview on Monday, but a member of his war cabinet told the BBC that he had not been suggesting reoccupation.
Israel has been bombarding the territory for a month and began a major ground offensive over a week ago with the objective of destroying Hamas, which it, the US and other Western powers consider a terrorist organisation.
The war began after an unprecedented cross-border assault on southern Israel by Hamas on 7 October, in which 1,400 people were killed and 240 others taken hostage.
Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry says more than 10,500 people have been killed in the territory since then, while the UN is warning of an increasingly dire humanitarian situation there.
