Israel-Gaza War: Netanyahu Vows To Intensify Campaign

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that Israel will step up its military campaign against Hamas in the coming days.

He informed his party members that he had visited Gaza on Monday morning and that Israel’s military campaign there was “far from over.”

His remarks came only days after US Secretary of State John Kerry warned Israel should reduce the severity of its strikes.

The battle began on October 7, when Hamas launched a deadly onslaught on Israeli villages.

Netanyahu Vows To Intensify Campaign

According to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, 20,674 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes since then. According to the report, the majority of those killed were women and children.

On October 7, Hamas terrorists burst across the border, killing around 1,200 persons, the majority of whom were civilians. Around 240 people were returned to Gaza as hostages. According to Israel, 132 people are still being held.

Mr. Netanyahu has promised to destroy Hamas and bring the hostages back to Israel.

On Monday, he told a meeting of his Likud party that troops he visited in Gaza wanted Israel to continue fighting.

Netanyahu Vows To Intensify Campaign

“They all asked me only one thing: that we don’t stop and continue until the end,” he said.

“So we don’t stop, we keep fighting, and we deepen the fighting in the coming days, and it will be a long fight, and it is not close to ending.”

Meanwhile, Israeli and Arab media reported that Egypt had suggested a truce between the two sides.

According to sources, the proposal would call for the gradual release of all Israeli captives as well as an undetermined number of Palestinian inmates detained in Israeli jails over a month and a half, culminating in the cessation of Israel’s offensive.

A previous temporary truce agreement arranged by Qatar resulted in the release of dozens of hostages from Gaza in exchange for Palestinian inmates.

Both Israel and Hamas have so far ignored rising calls for a cease-fire.

Mr Netanyahu told the Israeli Knesset on Monday that military pressure has previously resulted in the rescue of dozens of hostages. “We will not be able to release all the abductees without military pressure, operational pressure, political pressure, therefore one thing will not be done – we will not stop fighting,” he went on to say.

According to the Gaza health ministry, an Israeli air attack in the Al-Maghazi refugee camp in the centre of the strip killed at least 70 people and damaged a densely packed residential block on Sunday.

Netanyahu Vows To Intensify Campaign

According to the Palestine Red Crescent Society, “intense” Israeli air strikes closed important highways connecting Maghazi to two other refugee camps, Al-Bureij and Al-Nuseirat, “hitting the work of ambulances and rescue teams.”

The Israeli military told the BBC on Sunday that it had received “reports of an incident in the Maghazi camp.”

“Despite the challenges posed by Hamas terrorists operating within civilian areas in Gaza, the IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] is committed to international law including taking feasible steps to minimize harm to civilians,” it said in a statement.

SOURCE – (BBC)