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Netanyahu rejects calls for ceasefire and resignation as he calls war against Hamas ‘battle of civilization against barbarians’
TEL AVIV (JTA) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza increases the chance that hostages will be freed, and rejected calls for a ceasefire in the country’s war against Hamas, which he called “a battle of civilization against barbarians.”
In a statement Monday evening followed by a brief question-and-answer period with foreign reporters, Netanyahu also blamed the war’s mounting death toll on Hamas, the terror group that governs the Gaza Strip. And he said he would not resign despite dismal poll numbers.
“I want to make clear Israel’s position regarding the ceasefire: just as the United States would not agree to a ceasefire after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, or after the terrorist attack of 9-11, Israel will not agree to a cessation of hostilities with Hamas after the horrific attacks of October 7,” Netanyahu said at the press conference at the Israel Defense Forces’ headquarters in Tel Aviv. “Calls for a ceasefire are calls for Israel to surrender to Hamas, to surrender to terrorism.”
The press conference occurred days after the Israel Defense Forces expanded a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip following Hamas’ Oct. 7 invasion of Israel, which killed 1,400 and wounded thousands. Hamas terrorists also took some 240 captives in the invasion.
Israel subsequently declared war on Hamas, and the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry says Israeli strikes have killed more than 8,000 people. Hamas has also shot thousands of rockets at cities across Israel.
In response to a question about the civilian death toll in Gaza, Netanyahu claimed that “not a single civilian has to die.” He said Hamas is responsible for civilian casualties in Gaza because it fires at Israel and has its command centers in civilian areas, and prevents civilians from fleeing. He added that Israel told residents of the northern Gaza Strip to evacuate to the southeastern part of the territory, where he said there is a “safe zone.” There have been IDF airstrikes in southern Gaza as well.
“Hamas is preventing them from leaving, keeping them in the areas of conflict,” Netanyahu said. “We’re going out of our way to prevent civilian casualties, not only by asking civilians to move, calling them to move, arranging a place for them to be, which is safe — also putting in humanitarian support.”
He added however, that “even the most just war” leads to the death of innocent civilians, citing the case of a British warplane that targeted the Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen during World War II but accidentally struck a school, killing children. (Netanyahu inaccurately stated that the plane accidentally hit a children’s hospital.)
Domestically, Netanyahu is facing pressure from families of those taken hostage by Hamas to agree to a large-scale prisoner exchange to secure their freedom. He said on Monday that he and the rest of Israel’s leadership believes that the ground invasion may push Hamas to free the hostages. Israeli forces rescued one hostage soldier on Sunday, and Hamas has released four others. More than 200 remain.
“The ground action actually creates the possibility, not the certainty, but the possibility of actually getting our hostages out,” he said. “Hamas will not do it unless they’re under pressure. They simply will not do it. They only do it under pressure. This creates pressure.”
Wearing a long sleeve black button-down shirt — his standard attire in public appearances since Oct. 7 — Netanyahu also addressed a question regarding calls for his resignation. A majority of Israelis, according to a recent poll, want him to resign after the war, while another poll showed that only 28% believe he’s the best person to lead the country in a head-to-head matchup with centrist Benny Gantz.
He also received flak for a recent social media post, which he later deleted and apologized for, that placed blame for the Oct. 7 massacre on Israel’s military and intelligence chiefs.
“The only thing I intend to have resigned is Hamas,” he said. “We’re going to resign them to the dustbin of history. That’s my goal, that’s my responsibility and that’s what I’m leading the country to do.”
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The post Netanyahu rejects calls for ceasefire and resignation as he calls war against Hamas ‘battle of civilization against barbarians’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
The post Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
The post Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
The post Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.