“The war in the Gaza Strip will be long and difficult and we are ready for it,” he told a news conference in Tel Aviv, announcing that his government had approved an extension of the “land invasion” of Gaza. Strip.
“We unanimously approved the expansion of the ground invasion,” said Benjamin Netanyahu, when in reality the invasion began on Friday evening and intensified throughout the day.
“Our goal is concrete: to defeat a murderous enemy. We declare ‘never again’ and repeat ‘never again,'” Netanyahu said.
A “second phase” has now begun with the incursion of more ground forces into Gaza from Friday evening, he said, and the aim is the “destruction of Hamas’s military and administrative capacity and the return of hostages to their homes.”
Netanyahu denied that the Israeli army is committing war crimes.
“Those who accuse the Israeli army of war crimes are hypocrites. I call on the civilians in Gaza to withdraw to the south of the Gaza Strip (…). The enemy cynically uses hospitals and shelters (…). to wage a struggle for humanity and against the barbarians,” he declared.
Still developing the offensive, Netanyahu recalled that in the first phase “air strikes” were launched that “dealt a heavy blow to the enemy.”
But “we are only at the beginning. The battle in the Gaza Strip will be difficult and long. This is our second war of independence. This is my life mission,” he reaffirmed.
As for the hostages, Netanyahu today met with the families of the 229 held by the Hamas group in Gaza and told them that Israel will “exhaust all options” to secure their return.
“The key is the level of pressure,” the prime minister said, emphasizing that “the greater the pressure, the greater the chance” of the hostages being released.
The hostages’ families issued an urgent appeal for a meeting with Netanyahu as well as Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, amid growing fears for their safety due to the increase in Israel’s ground operations in the Gaza Strip.
For his part, Israeli Army Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said in a message published on the social network to bring hostages home. it out successfully.
Halevi also acknowledged that the ongoing operation “will be complex and involve risks, because victory has a price.”
“To destroy the enemy, there is no other solution than to enter his territory by force,” he stressed.
Israeli soldiers continued their ground operations in the Gaza Strip territory today, following several raids on Friday, the Israeli army confirmed.
A total of 7,703 people have been killed and 18,967 injured by bombings in Gaza since October 7, when a surprise Hamas raid on Israeli territory killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians. Another 229 were kidnapped and remain in the hands of the Islamist group.
Source: DN
