The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahuhas urged to continue exerting “military pressure” on Gaza until achieving “an absolute victory” that includes the release of the hostages, without accepting Hamas’ demands for a possible truce pact.
“Continuing with military pressure is a necessary condition to free the hostages, succumbing to Hamas will only lead to another massacre,” Netanyahu said in a press conference, where he added that the Israeli Army “must methodically destroy Hamas” until it achieves the fringe “does not represent any threat to Israel“.
With his statements, the head of Government has publicly rejected the conditions demanded by Hamas to free more than a hundred Israeli hostages still in the Strip. The Islamist group calls for the withdrawal of Israeli troops and the end of the offensive in the enclave as a framework for the release of captivesa demand that Israel does not accept and that represents a great obstacle to the truce.
“Only an absolute victory will give security to Israel,” insisted Netanyahu, who has assured that the israeli forces They continue to act to free the hostages, while there is still a lot of pressure from their relatives to reach an agreement that involves their release.
Reiterates that Israel “is on the path to victory” in the Strip
He has also reiterated that Israel “is on the path to victory” in the Strip, and stressed that the war will end “in a matter of months” amid the advances of Israeli troops in their ground offensive on Gaza.
As he stressed, the Army has already achieved “unprecedented achievements”, while “it continues to kill terrorists”, destroying command centers, military infrastructure or “the tunnels where Hamas hides“.
At the same time, he insisted that after defeating the Islamist group, Israel will maintain control over Gaza and seek to make it “demilitarized” forever“.
“We will continue until the end,” he stressed, while there is speculation that Israeli troops now intend to direct operations to the southern end of the enclave, Rafah. More than a million civilians are crowded into this city and it is on the border with Egypt, and if taken it would ensure Israel’s land control of the entire Strip.
After its attack on Israel on October 7, which caused some 1,200 deadthe Israeli offensive on the enclave has left more than 27,700 Palestinians deaths in four months, a landscape of severe destruction in the Strip and an extreme humanitarian crisis.