Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his Cabinet on Sunday that he would rather destroy Hamas than be eulogized in the international media for the noble way in which Israel allowed itself to be destroyed.
Netanyahu spoke in the wake of large protests against his government by Israelis who are urging that he reach a hostage deal with Hamas, and end the war.
Israel is open to a deal, provided all of the hostages are released at once, and that Hamas is disarmed and removed from power. In the meantime, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) prepared this weekend to move ahead with an invasion of Hamas’s Gaza City stronghold.
His remarks, in full, are as follows (translated from Hebrew by the Government Press Office):
We are intensifying the operation on the outskirts of, and inside, Gaza City. We are eliminating Nukhba terrorists who played a significant role in the October 7 massacre, including the accursed terrorist who called his parents and took pride in having personally murdered 10 Israelis. Now we called the family and informed it that this terrorist has been eliminated. It is a clear message that we will reach them all. I want to thank, on your behalf as well, the ISA and the IDF for doing this important work.
We are eliminating terrorist infrastructure and nefarious terrorist high-rises. We have established an additional humanitarian corridor to enable the civilian population in Gaza to leave for a safe place and receive humanitarian assistance there. In the meantime, approximately 100,000 people have left Gaza. Hamas is trying to do its utmost so that no one will go and they will stay there in order to serve as human shields for it. By the way, it does not refrain from any means. Only recently we have seen how it shoots women and children in the legs and if necessary, shoots them. Therefore, it is expected that it will try to prevent the exit that is necessary from a humanitarian perspective and from our perspective regarding the war. We want to focus on the terrorists themselves and enable the civilian population to go out.
On Friday, Hamas issued a cruel and reprehensible video of [hostages] Alon Ohel and Guy Gilboa-Dalal. I must say that I spoke at length with their families on Friday and underscored – on behalf of myself, you and the entire people – our support for them. I must also say that most citizens of Israel, the great majority of the citizens of Israel, are standing steadfast against this psychological terrorism.
Our effort in Gaza against the last strongholds, in effect last important stronghold, Gaza City, is part of our effort to complete the crushing of the stranglehold by the Iranian axis. This axis was intended to destroy the State of Israel, and by dismantling it and striking it, we are removing an existential threat to Israel, the primary threat.
We have landed very severe blows on Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, just recently you saw this, and we brought about the fall of the Assad regime. Of course, the peak was the severe blow on the patron of this axis – Iran, and the distancing of the existential of nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles over our heads. We will continue this effort until we achieve all of our objectives for the war.
I am aware of the price that we are paying in the diplomatic and public diplomacy fields for the State of Israel and the best way to get out of this, of course, is to establish completely new mechanisms as we mentioned, and – of course – to end the war as fast as possible with the victory that we have defined: Eliminating Hamas, the return of all the hostages and ensuring that Gaza never again threatens Israel.
But regarding the public diplomacy damage, I would like to say one thing: If I need to choose between victory over our enemies and malicious propaganda against us, I choose victory over our enemies, as opposed to the opposite. I do not want stories that we have been beaten by our enemies and for us to be eulogized well in the global media. I choose victory.
The U.S. is supporting Israel in both its war aims and its diplomatic efforts, with President Donald Trump urging Israel to finish the war as soon as possible, whether through military victory or a hostage deal.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Zionist Conspiracy Wants You, now available on Amazon. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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