Israel’s new Foreign Minister, Israel Katz, said Tuesday that the country is at the “peak” of a third world war against Iran and radical Islam, reiterating the goal of defeating the Islamist group Hamas.
“We will achieve our goal of overthrowing Hamas,” said Katz, whose main mission is to return home the hostages who have been held captive by Palestinian militias in Gaza since October 7.
“Our commitment as a country and as a ministry is, above all, to bring the hostages home with new initiatives, to exert pressure at a global level,” said the new ruler, in Jerusalem, during a ceremony in which he received the new functions of his predecessor, Eli Cohen.
A commitment that he later highlighted on his social network account X.
נכנסתי היום לתפקידי כשר החוץ. המסר שלי לעובדים היה תמציתי. בראש סדר העדיפויות – חטופים. חטופים. חטופים. זו המחויבות שלנו לעם ולמשפחות.
– ישראל כ”ץ Israel Katz (@Israel_katz) January 2, 2024
Katz also addressed the importance of Israel maintaining international legitimacy to continue the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Last week, positions were swapped between Katz and Cohen, who now takes over the energy portfolio, as part of a rotation agreement reached by the Likud party last year.
Katz, who held the position between February 2019 and May 2020, assumes the Foreign Affairs portfolio in the midst of the military campaign in the Gaza Strip and at a crucial moment for Israeli diplomacy, criticized by much of the international community for its answer. to the Hamas attacks on October 7.
The most recent conflict between Israel and Hamas was triggered after an unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement in Israeli territory on October 7, in which 1,140 people participated, mostly civilians and among them some 400 soldiers, according to the latest official figures. Israelis. Around 240 civilians and soldiers were kidnapped, and Israel said 127 remain in Gaza.
In retaliation, Israel, which has vowed to destroy the Palestinian Islamist movement, has bombed the Gaza Strip since October 7, where, according to the local government led by Hamas, more than 22,000 people have already died, mostly women, children and adolescents. . – – and injured more than 54,000, most of them civilians, destroyed most of the infrastructure and nearly two million were forced to abandon their homes, almost all of the enclave’s 2.3 million inhabitants.
The population of the Gaza Strip is also facing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, due to the collapse of hospitals, the outbreak of epidemics and the shortage of drinking water, food, medicine and electricity.
Source: TSF
