JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu struck a defiant tone in marking 100 days of war against
Hamas in the
Gaza Strip, vowing to keep fighting despite growing uncertainty
over the outcome, international alarm over the mounting loss of life in the
enclave, and fears of a broader regional conflagration.
اضافة اعلان
His pledge to continue until “total
victory” came even as Israel awaited a decision from the world’s top court on a
possible injunction against its military’s devastating offensive in Gaza.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians, a majority of
them women and children, according to Gaza health officials, and displaced most
of the enclave’s population.
Warning of a long conflict, the
remarks from Netanyahu, and comments from the Israeli military over the weekend
exposed a growing dissonance between the domestic perception of the timing and
goals of the war and increasing international impatience in the face of a
deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
The US, Israel’s most important
ally, has urged Israel to scale down its campaign, while many other countries
have called for an immediate cease-fire.
“We are continuing the war until the
end — until total victory until we achieve all of our goals,” Netanyahu
declared in a televised news conference Saturday night, saying that
“eliminating Hamas, returning all of our hostages and ensuring that
Gaza will never again constitute a threat to Israel” were the goals.
“Nobody will stop us — not The
Hague, not the axis of evil, and not anybody else,” he added. The Hague is
where the United Nations’ top court is hearing accusations brought by South
Africa that Israel is committing
genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza.
The court’s judges heard two days of
hearings last week and will now decide whether to call on Israel to adopt
provisional measures, such as a stop to the fighting, while it assesses the
merit of the genocide claim. No date has been set for the announcement of that
decision, and, in any case, the court has few means of enforcing its rulings.
Netanyahu in the same breath invoked
Iran and its proxies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen,
whose military actions in solidarity, they say, with Palestinians in Gaza have
raised the specter of a wider conflict.
The US led airstrikes Thursday and
Friday against sites in
Yemen controlled by the Houthi militia, in response to
more than two dozen Houthi attacks against commercial shipping in the Red Sea
since November. However, the Houthis retained much of their ability to fire
missiles and drones, according to US officials.
At the same time, clashes across the
Israel-Lebanon border continued over the weekend.
An antitank missile launched from
Lebanon on Sunday hit a house in northern Israel, killing a farmer and his
mother, according to initial reports. Israel’s military said that its fighter
jets struck Hezbollah targets in Lebanon and that its forces had engaged in a
firefight overnight with assailants who crossed into Israeli-controlled
territory from Lebanon. Three attackers were killed, and five soldiers were
wounded, the military said.
Tens of thousands of Israelis have
been evacuated from the country’s northern border areas, and Israel has warned
that it will resort to military action if diplomatic efforts to allow their
safe return home do not bear fruit. Thousands of Lebanese civilians have also
fled the border area.
On Sunday, Hezbollah’s leader,
Hassan Nasrallah, struck a tone of defiance. “After 99 days,” he said, “we are
ready for war. We are not afraid of it.”
For now, Israel’s leaders say they
are focusing on Gaza.
While Netanyahu on Sunday
acknowledged that the war “will yet take many months,” his remarks the previous
night appeared to be as focused on raising domestic morale as on countering
international criticism of the military campaign.
Addressing doubters who have cast
the Israeli government’s goal of destroying Hamas, the militant group that has
controlled Gaza for 16 years, as unrealistic, he said, “It is possible, it is
necessary, and we will do it.”
As the death toll in Gaza has
climbed, international calls for a cease-fire have mounted. The fighting has
displaced most of the enclave’s population of 2.2 million people, and the UN
has warned that half the population is at risk of starvation.
“The massive death, destruction,
displacement, hunger, loss and grief of the last 100 days are staining our
shared humanity,” Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the U.N. agency
responsible for Palestinian refugees, said in a statement.
Rajab al-Sindawi, a 48-year-old man
from Gaza City, said he, his wife, and their seven children were sheltering in
a nylon tent on a sidewalk in the Tel al-Sultan neighborhood of Rafah and
struggling to stay warm at night because they had only a few blankets.
“Nothing’s fair in Gaza,” Sindawi
said in a text message. “My family is lacking the basic things one needs in
life.”
Despite the wide-scale death and
destruction in Gaza, Fuad Khuffash, an analyst close to Hamas, insisted that
the armed group was winning the war. “Hamas is still firing rockets, it’s still
confronting and killing soldiers, and it’s still destroying tanks,” said
Khuffash, who is based in Nablus in the
Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Addressing the toll on Gaza’s
population, Khuffash said that “anyone in the world who wants to free their
country must make a sacrifice.”
And “as for Israel,” he said, “it
hasn’t achieved any of its goals: It has not ended Hamas, it has not taken away
Hamas’s weapons, it has not killed Hamas’s top leaders in Gaza, and it hasn’t
brought back the Israeli prisoners. In military and political terms, Hamas has
achieved a victory.”
In a televised statement Saturday
night, the Israeli military’s chief of staff said that plans had been approved
to continue combat and increase pressure on Hamas, which would lead to the
dismantling of the group and the return of the hostages who were taken in the
Oct 7. assault on Israel.
“These goals are complex to achieve
and will take a long time,” said the chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi,
urging patience.
Of the 240 people abducted from
Israel to Gaza on
Oct. 7, more than 130 remain in the enclave, according to
Israeli officials, although not all are believed to be alive.
In Israel, public concern for the
hostages has increased with each passing day.
On Sunday, a workday in Israel, a
100-minute work stoppage in solidarity with the hostages was observed by
universities, many businesses, local councils, and public bodies.
Tens of thousands of Israelis also
attended a rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday night in support of the hostages and
their families. Scores of demonstrators blocked the main intercity highway,
demanding that the government secure the immediate release of the remaining
captives.
“We are deeply concerned that our
decision-makers are not prioritizing the hostages, to get them home alive and
not in boxes,” said Jonathan Dekel-Chen, whose son Sagui, 35, an American
citizen, was taken hostage on Oct. 7.
Large pro-Palestinian demonstrations
also took place in London, Washington, New York, and other cities on Saturday
to mark the 100 days of war. Protesters in London chanted “Cease-fire now” and
held placards including “Gaza — stop the massacre.” In Washington, thousands of
protesters also called for an end to US military aid to Israel.
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