Despite international protests, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is sticking to the plan for an imminent ground offensive against Rafah.
– It will take a couple of weeks, but it will happen, he says.
Netanyahu’s statements took place in connection with a government meeting where the prime minister, among other things, questioned the international protests against the war against Hamas.
– To our international friends, I say: is your memory so short, how could you so quickly forget October 7, the worst massacre against Jews since the Holocaust, he asks himself according to the Jerusalem Post and continues:
– If we end the war now before all goals are achieved, it means that Israel has lost the war and we do not intend to allow that.
In the near future
Netanyahu’s criticism comes after the US Senate leader Charles Schumer, among others, called for new elections in Israel earlier this week and also came down hard on Benjamin Netanyahu in particular.
– They are trying to do this because they know that an election would stop the war and paralyze the country for at least six months, replies Israel’s prime minister.
Instead, he is once again launching an offensive against Rafah in the near future. Rafah is the southernmost city in Gaza where the majority of the civilian population has taken refuge. Previously, it has been said that the ground offensive must be preceded by an evacuation of the civilian population. How – or if – this will happen, Netanyahu did not comment on, but only sticks to an offensive.
– We will enter Rafah, he says.