Benjamin Netanyahu has warned America and the West will ‘be next’ if Hamas is not eradicated.
The Israeli PM told Fox News on Monday that for the sake of the ‘civilized world’ it is essential the IDF roots out the terrorists responsible for the October 7 massacre.
Netanyahu said: ‘If we don’t win now, then Europe is next and you’re next. And we have to win.
‘We have to win to protect Israel. We have to win to safeguard the Middle East. We have to win for the sake of the civilized world.
‘That’s the battle we’re fighting, and it’s being waged right now. There is no substitute for that victory.’
Addressing Americans again, he stressed ‘our fight is your fight’ before branding the war as the frontline against ‘barbarism’ which could ‘endanger the entire world’.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that America and the West will be ‘next’ if Hamas is not eradicated in the war against the terrorist group
‘Every American, every civilized country will be under peril. We have to win. Total victory,’ he added.
Netanyahu called out the ‘Axis of Terror’ led by Iran – which includes Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen – and said ‘they want to bring the Middle East, the world, back to the Dark Ages.’
He continued: ‘And on the other side stands Israel, the modern Arab states, of course the United States, all the forces that want to see peace, prosperity for the Middle East and for the world. And that’s the battle that is being waged right now.’
But the Israeli PM also mentioned that they are fighting ‘for the sake of Gazans who’ve been held by this dark tyranny that has brutalized and brought them nothing but bloodshed and poverty and misery.’
As the Israeli armed forces sweep through Gaza, they have claimed to find a Hamas base underneath a hospital ‘where hostages were held’ with footage of the area released on November 13.
As the world decries the loss of innocent lives in Gaza, Netanyahu has insisted there will be no ceasefire until all Israel hostages are returned.
Hamas’s deadly assault on October 7 saw around 240 taken captive and at least 1,200 Israeli civilians killed. In response, Israel has begun a siege on Gaza to take out the terror group for good.
A member of the Israeli security forces stands near burning cars following a rocket attack from the Gaza Strip in Ashkelon, southern Israel, on October 7
The Israeli side of the border with the Gaza Strip on November 11
Abu Ubaida, the spokesman for Hamas said in an audio recording posted on the group’s Telegram channel that they were ready to release up to 70 women and children held in Gaza in return for a five-day truce with Israel.
‘Last week there was an effort from the Qatari brothers to release the enemy captives from women and children, in return for the release of 200 Palestinian children and 75 women detained by the enemy.
‘The truce should include a complete ceasefire and allow aid and humanitarian relief everywhere in the Gaza Strip,’ he said.
He accused Israel of ‘procrastinating and evading’ the price of the deal.
Discussing the war at a news conference in Tel Aviv on Saturday, Netanyahu said Israel ‘will not stop until we complete our mission’ and that its only goal is to win.
He said Hamas has ‘lost its grip’ on Gaza and there is now ‘no place to hide’.
Netanyahu said he still has daily contact with US President Joe Biden, and also has the ‘political and ethical support’ of the American administration.
The armed wing of the Palestinian militant group Hamas said on Monday it told Qatari mediators the group was ready to release up to 70 women and children held in Gaza in return for a five-day truce with Israel
Abu Ubaida, the spokesman for the armed wing of Hamas, al-Qassam Brigades, said in an audio recording posted on the group’s Telegram channel that they’ve offered a deal
Several world leaders have come to visit Israel to show support but there are ‘minorities that pressure the governments’, he said.
He urged the government to ‘not succumb to this pressure’ and said ‘our war is their war’.
‘No international pressure, no false accusations… will deviate us from our cause,’ he said.
Rejecting calls for a ceasefire, he said: ‘If you want peace, we have to eliminate Hamas.’
With Israeli forces currently fighting in the center of Gaza City, the territory’s main city, both sides have seized on the plight of hospitals as a symbol of the larger war, now in its sixth week.
Israel accuses Hamas of using hospitals as cover for its fighters, alleging that Hamas has set up its main command center in and beneath Gaza’s largest hospital, Shifa, without providing visual evidence. Both Hamas and Shifa Hospital staff deny the Israeli allegations.
On Monday, the military released footage of a children’s hospital that its forces moved into over the weekend, showing weapons it said it found inside, as well as rooms in the basement where it believes the militants were holding some of the around 240 hostages they abducted during the initial attack.
Meanwhile, gunfire and explosions raged Monday around Shifa, which has been encircled by Israeli troops for days. Tens of thousands of people have fled the hospital in the past few days and headed to the southern Gaza Strip, including large numbers of displaced people who had taken shelter there, as well as patients who could move.
People mourn as they collect the bodies of Palestinians killed in Israeli raids on November 14
U.S. President Joe Biden said Monday that Shifa ‘must be protected.’
‘It is my hope and expectation that there will be less intrusive action,’ Biden said in the Oval Office.
Early Tuesday, the Israeli military said in a statement that it had started an effort to transfer incubators from Israel to Shifa. It wasn’t clear if the incubators had been delivered or how they will be powered.
The U.S. has pushed for temporary pauses to allow wider distribution of badly needed aid. Israel has agreed only to daily windows during which civilians can flee northern Gaza on foot along two main roads. U.N. monitors said that about 200,000 people moved south along the two routes since Nov. 5. Israel has described the corridors to the south as safe, but at the same time continues to strike what it says are militant targets across the territory, often killing women and children.
Israel’s stated goal of separating civilians from Hamas militants has come at a heavy cost: More than two-thirds of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes.
