Netanyahu: Israel will defeat Hamas ‘neo-Nazi regime’ in Gaza
“If it were up to you—in the opposition, the TV studios, the former officials—you would have given up a long time ago,” the PM said at the Knesset.
The Israel Defense Forces is making significant progress towards the total destruction of Hamas’s “neo-Nazi regime” in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the opposition during a Knesset debate on Wednesday.
“If it were up to you—in the opposition, the TV studios, the former officials—you would have given up a long time ago,” Netanyahu charged during a so-called 40 signatures debate, which 40 opposition lawmakers can call once a month and in which the premier is legally obliged to participate.
“You would end the war without eliminating commanders, without control of Rafah and the Philadelphi [Corridor], and [Hamas “military” leader] Mohammed Deif would walk around as a winner. Instead of dropping a bomb on him, you would give him a gas agreement in Gaza, just like you gave to [Hezbollah chief Hassan] Nasrallah in Lebanon,” Netanyahu said, in reference to the deal signed during opposition leader Yair Lapid’s 2022 premiership.
The premier stressed that, despite “enormous pressure at home and abroad, including from the United States,” he insisted on continuing the war and ramping up the IDF’s military actions against Hamas in Gaza.
“Many here, in the studios, and former officials, have said it is not possible to defeat Hamas. They said: ‘It’s an idea; you can’t beat an idea,’” Netanyahu continued, before noting that while “there are still neo-Nazis in Germany, but 80 years ago, they eliminated the Nazi regime.
“This is what we are going to do: Eliminate this neo-Nazi regime in Gaza. We are coming to eliminate the governmental and military capabilities of Hamas, and we are making progress towards this goal,” he said.
The prime minister concluded by saying, “We are determined to win the war. We are determined to return all our hostages. The key is pressure, pressure and more pressure. And I want to share two secrets with you: One, pressure should be directed at [Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya] Sinwar and not at the Israeli prime minister. Two, pressure on me will not work.”
The abyss
Lapid during the debate in the Knesset’s plenary hall repeatedly urged Netanyahu to resign, telling the premier, “I already removed you from the Prime Minister’s Office once [a reference to the March 2021 national election], and we will do it again.
“You and I know that this is an irresponsible and dangerous government, which is causing us to sink into the abyss,” Lapid said. “We deserve a prime minister who is not tired, not burned out, not to blame for so many disasters. For that to happen, we need quick elections.”
The opposition leader called on Netanyahu to use his July 24 addresss to the United States Congress to announce his acceptance of President Joe Biden’s hostages-for-ceasefire outline with Hamas. (The Biden administration previously said that Hamas was stalling the deal).
During the debate, Knesst member Mansour Abbas, whose Islamist Ra’am Party was part of the short-lived government formed by Lapid and Naftali Bennett following the 2021 election, was assailed by coalition lawmakers for urging an end to the war and claiming that Israeli troops “murdered” 50,000 civilians in Gaza. (The Hebrew word used by Abbas could also be translated as “citizens.”)
MK Ayman Odeh, leader of the predominantly Arab Hadash-Ta’al party, was escorted out of the plenum hall for calling Netanyahu a terrorist.
Netanyahu said on May 13 that there was roughly a one-to-one ratio of terrorists to noncombatants killed and that”we’re facing 35,000 Hamas terrorists. We’ve killed already about 14,000, wounded many others.”
That same week, Avi Hyman, a spokesman for the Israeli government, said Israel had killed more than 14,000 terrorists and that some 16,000 civilians had been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7 as a result of the ensuing war.
Hyman said the Israeli army was setting the gold standard for urban warfare with “the lowest civilian-to-combatant casualty ratio in history.”
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