Thea Fathanah Arbar, CNBC Indonesia
Tuesday, 12/26/2023 19:52 IWST
Photo: Benjamin Netanyahu (via REUTERS/POOL)
Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Israeli Prime Minister (PM) Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to continue fighting in Gaza until Hamas is destroyed. It even defied global calls for a ceasefire.
Netanyahu, who visited Israeli troops in northern Gaza on Monday, told Likud lawmakers that the war was far from over. He rejected what he called media speculation that his government might stop the fighting.
“We will not stop. The war will continue until the end, until we finish it, nothing less,” Netanyahu said, as quoted by Reuters.
Netanyahu also said Israel would not succeed in freeing the remaining hostages held by Hamas without applying military pressure.
In an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal on Monday, Netanyahu reiterated three prerequisites for peace: Hamas must be destroyed, Gaza must be demilitarized, and Palestinian society must be deradicalized.
In retaliation against Hamas for a deadly cross-border attack on October 7, Israel came under pressure from its closest ally, the United States (US), to shift operations in Gaza to a lower intensity phase and reduce civilian deaths.
On Tuesday morning, Palestinians reported several airstrikes near the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, the largest medical facility in the southern Gaza Strip.
Palestinian health officials say seven people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house in the Al-Amal neighborhood of Khan Younis.
Palestinians mourned more than 100 people who Gaza health officials said were killed in Israeli airstrikes on Sunday night, one of the deadliest nights of 11 weeks of fighting between Israel and Hamas.
At a funeral in Gaza, a line of Palestinian mourners touched white shrouds covering the bodies of at least 70 people who Palestinian health officials said were killed by an airstrike that hit Maghazi in the center of the strip.
Nearly 20,700 Gazans have been killed to date, including 250 in the last 24 hours, according to authorities in Hamas-ruled Gaza.
Watch the video below:
10 Weeks of War, More Than 20,000 Palestinians Killed
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2023-12-26 12:52:32
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