Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte for his country’s contribution to a new scanner at the Kerem Shalom Crossing on the Gaza border. The scanner, which is already operational, has helped improve security for Israel and prosperity for the people in Gaza, helping the flow of goods to Europe.

In the press conference following his meeting with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the issue of the Palestinian economy:

"My record has been to facilitate economic development of the Palestinian areas as far as possible. People wrongly call it the economic peace. I never said that this would substitute for political peace, but it facilitates it. During my second term in office, the Palestinian economy and the Palestinian Authority grew by about 10%. It's slackened - it's now at least half that, perhaps less than that. We have a goal, which is a common goal with the Palestinians, to raise that level.

The only way you raise that level is doing things that I did – we removed hundreds of roadblocks, checkpoints, hundreds, facilitated movement of goods and services. This has been indispensable for the growth of the Palestinian economy in the Palestinian Authority. Now in Gaza, when we left unilaterally, it was taken over essentially by Iran's proxies, Hamas and now Islamic Jihad, and they have used Gaza to start a war economy: rockets, missiles and so on. Nevertheless, we opened up the passages and enabled them to import what they need.

It's very important for us to make sure that what comes out of Gaza is not used for war materiel. For example, we recently discovered a tunnel. The tunnel contained 700 tons of concrete – 700 tons of concrete in one tunnel. We think there are at least another 15-20 tunnels like that. So we allow them to bring concrete and then they use it for tunnels that are used for kidnapping or attacks against us.

So obviously we're not interested in that. We welcome the bringing in of scanners to make sure that at least we control the material that goes in and out of Gaza. But our concern is security. It is not to prevent prosperity. It's to enable prosperity without undertaking impossible security challenges. The Dutch scanner can facilitate the screening of goods that go out to the European markets. But we want to make sure that goods that go out from Gaza do not contain weapons or explosives that can reach the Palestinian Authority areas.

That would undermine not merely us, it would undermine the Palestinian Authority. There are Hamas cells that we're dealing with in the Palestinian Authority area and we have been able, in cooperation with the Palestinian security forces, to keep them at bay. I don't want to provide an open channel for Hamas and Islamic Jihad and al-Nusra into the Palestinian Authority. That is not a good idea.

So let's take it stage by stage. The scanner is good; it's important for security; it'll be important also for prosperity; and we'll take one step at a time together."