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Netanyahu: Pressure from Allies Will Not Stop Israel from Achieving War Aims in Gaza

(Times of Israel) Lazar Berman - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview released Sunday that pressure from allies would not stop him from achieving Israel's war aims. "In Israel's history, when faced with this kind of pressure, the leaders did what they had to do....You cannot say that you support the right of Israel to defend itself and then condemn it when it seeks to exercise that right." Netanyahu said the military campaign in Gaza will continue for a long time, in order to prevent Hamas from reemerging. "You don't have to reoccupy it. You just have to demilitarize it actively. And you know, the distances are so small. So you go in, you go out. Or you remain where you have to be." He said the next stage was to find another civil administration in Gaza. His hope was to use locals unaffiliated with Hamas with the support of Arab states. But "no one's going to come in until they know that you either destroyed Hamas, or you're about to destroy Hamas. And that's a certainty. Because if they think Hamas is going to emerge from the rubble and retake Gaza, they're not going to commit suicide." Once Hamas is eliminated, he said, new opportunities will present themselves. Victory over Hamas "is not when every last Hamas fighter disappears, but when we vanquish them, destroy their organized battalions, and mop up the remaining places, and that's going to take some time, but we can do it."
2024-05-16 00:00:00
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