Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, in an interview broadcast on ABC on Sunday, that there is a “sufficient number” of 132 Israeli hostages alive in Gaza to justify the continuation of the Israeli war in the region.
In response to a question about the number of hostages still alive, Netanyahu said that the number is “sufficient to justify the kind of efforts we are making.”
He added in an interview with the “This Week” program broadcast by the American network, “We will do our utmost to recover all the living, and frankly, the bodies of the dead as well.”
Netanyahu said, “One Palestinian civilian is killed for every Hamas militant killed in Gaza.”
Gaza health authorities estimate that about 28,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed in the Strip since the war began in October.
The Israeli Prime Minister also revealed some details related to the expected military operation in Rafah, where about half of the population of the Gaza Strip is concentrated after being displaced from their areas, while Israeli media reported that the veteran politician, nicknamed “Bibi,” informed officials that “the Rafah operation must To be completed before the start of Ramadan.
More than a million Palestinians are gathering in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip on the Egyptian border, after fleeing the northern regions as a result of the raging war.
In the interview, Netanyahu considered, “Victory is within reach, and we will do so. We will control the last Hamas terrorist brigades, and Rafah, which is the last stronghold.”
According to the Israeli Channel 12 report, the Chief of Staff of the Israeli Army, Herzi Halevy, informed Netanyahu that “the Israeli army is ready to work (in Rafah), “but it needs the government to first decide what it wants to do with the displaced people from Gaza who have taken refuge there.”
In a related context, Channel 12 also quoted the Israeli Army Chief of Staff as saying, “The army also needs to know the government’s plans for the Philadelphia Corridor, which is the 14-kilometre security road along the Gaza border with Egypt.”
The Philadelphia Axis, also called the “Salah al-Din Axis,” is located along the border between Gaza and Egypt, within a buffer zone under the “Camp David” peace agreement between Egypt and Israel in 1979.
This agreement allows Israel and Egypt to deploy forces with limited numbers and equipment, and specific numbers, types of weapons, and mechanisms that can be deployed on that axis, with the aim of carrying out patrols on the side of the Egyptian axis, to prevent smuggling, infiltration, and other criminal activities.
Hamas militants killed 1,200 Israelis and took about 250 hostage in Gaza in an attack on October 7 that led to the outbreak of war.
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2024-02-11 16:51:33
