Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, ahead of hernia surgery, vowed that Israel would invade Rafah despite dual pressure from Ramadan and Washington.
Netanyahu, 74, said he had approved the IDF’s “operational plan” for Rafah and said his forces were “prepared to evacuate civilians and provide humanitarian assistance.”
File: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends his weekly Cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, June 25, 2023. (Abil Sultan/Pool photo via AP, file)
“This is the right thing to do operationally and internationally,” he said. “It will take time, but it will be completed. We will enter Rafah and eliminate the Hamas battalion there. The reason is simple: we will not win unless we enter Rafah, and we will win unless we eliminate the Hamas battalion that is there. No.”
The comments came after Israeli leaders met with families of hostages still in Gaza. He rejected accusations of delaying his release.
“Those who say I am not doing everything in my power to return the hostages are wrong and misleading, and those who know the truth and still repeat this lie are causing unnecessary grief to the families of the hostages. “
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that Israel was “softening” its negotiating position while Hamas was “hardening”.
“Despite all the difficulties, negotiations must be conducted with calm and calm determination,” he said. “This is the only way to return the hostages.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu has kept a perfect schedule throughout Israel’s nearly six-month war against Hamas. A hernia was discovered during a routine medical checkup, but doctors say he is otherwise in good health. Doctors admitted last year that he had hidden a long-known heart condition after having a pacemaker implanted.
Palestinians look on at the destruction following an Israeli attack on a residential building in Deir al-Bala, Gaza Strip, January 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)
Immediately after October 7, when Hamas killed around 1,200 people and took 250 hostages in a cross-border attack, Israeli society broadly united. The nearly six-month conflict has renewed rifts over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership, but the country remains largely supportive of the war.
On Sunday, thousands of Israelis gathered outside Jerusalem’s parliament building in the biggest anti-government demonstration since the start of the war. They called on the government to reach a ceasefire agreement to release dozens of hostages held by Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip and to hold early elections.
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About half of the hostages in Gaza were released during a week-long ceasefire in November. However, attempts by international mediators to return the remaining hostages failed. Negotiations resumed on Sunday with little hope of a breakthrough.
FILE – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs a cabinet meeting at the Kirya military base, home to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, in Tel Aviv, Israel, on December 24, 2023. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg, Pool, File)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said victory would not be possible without a strike on military land in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than half of the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million people are currently sheltering after fleeing fighting elsewhere.
Gaza’s Health Ministry, which is controlled by Hamas, said Sunday that more than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war. The ministry’s tally does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but it says about two-thirds of the deaths were women and children.
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Israel disputes these figures, saying more than a third of the deaths were militants and that civilian casualties are due to Hamas operating in residential areas.
FOX News’ Yael Rotem-Kriel and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
