The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahuhe reiterated this Thursday, five months after the start of the war in Gazathe existential character that he gives to the war offensive and assured that it will not end without the invasion of Rafahthe southernmost area of the enclave with 1.4 million displaced people.
The Army “will continue to act against all Hamas battalions throughout the Strip, and that includes Rafah, the last Hamas stronghold. “Whoever tells us not to act in Rafah is telling us to lose the war, and that will not happen,” the president said today in a speech during the graduation ceremony for hundreds of cadets.
“We are fighting these monsters to ensure our existence, while at the same time protecting the most sacred values of the free world and human society as a whole,” Netanyahu added, referring to Hamas militants.
In Gaza, some 30,800 people have lost their lives in five months, and another 72,300 have been injured – more than 70% of them women and children, according to data from the Gaza Ministry of Health. Furthermore, at least twenty people have already died of malnutrition, and getting food or drinking water is extremely difficult.
For his part, at the same event, the Chief of the General Staff of the Israeli Army, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, called for “recruits from all corners of Israeli society” to join his troops, in a clear allusion to the growing ultra-Orthodox sector.
“Not only because the Israel Defense Forces need to cover missing forces and expand their ranks, but mainly to strengthen social cohesion,” Halevi said.
Due to a temporary agreement with the Ministry of Defense, and which is being appealed in Israel’s Supreme Court, some 66,000 ultra-Orthodox men registered as students of yeshivas or kollels – where they dedicate themselves full-time to studying the Talmud and rabbinic literature – are exempt from military service.
Despite international pressure for a ceasefire in a devastated Gaza, which coincides with the holy month of Ramadan that will begin next week, Netanyahu today urged “close ranks” against attempts to stop the war.
“In the future we will openly and fully draw all the lessons of October 7, but today we have a clear and immediate objective before our eyes: to achieve complete victory in the war,” he added. EFE (I)
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