ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER Benjamin Netanyahu has said that fighting in Gaza will be “long and difficult” as the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) confirmed it has had troops on the ground in the region for over 24 hours.
Speaking at a press conference this evening, Netanyahu said: “The war in the [Gaza] Strip will be long and difficult and we are prepared for it.”
Netanyahu spoke to the press after meeting families of hostages held in Gaza since surprise Hamas attacks on southern Israel on 7 October.
Hamas today said it would release all 220 hostages, taken during the attack, if Israel released all Palestinian prisoners in its custody.
Hamas’s leader in the Gaza Strip said this evening that the Palestinian militant group was ready for an “immediate” prisoner swap with Israel.
“We are ready to conduct an immediate prisoner exchange deal that includes the release of all Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails in exchange for all prisoners held by the Palestinian resistance,” Sinwar said in a statement.
Netanyahu made no commitment to any exchange deal but told the families authorities would “exhaust every option to bring them (the hostages) home”.
He added that defeating Hamas was an “existential test” for Israel, charging that 90 percent of the group’s military budget came from Iran.
“We must defeat Hamas because the test is an existential test for us,” Netanyahu told a news conference.
“Iran supports Hamas. I think that 90 percent of Hamas’s military budget comes from Iran. It funds, it organises, it directs it.”
Earlier, the IDF dropped leaflets from their fighter jets, whilst flying over Northern Gaza, which warn citizens to evacuate south.
The leaflets told citizens that the area was now a “battlefield”. Israeli forces have stepped up their air campaign against Hamas militants in the Palestinian territory.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres sharply criticized the “unprecedented escalation” of bombardments on Gaza and urged an “immediate” ceasefire.
“Instead of the pause” he had expected, there has been “an unprecedented escalation of the bombardments and their devastating impacts, undermining the referred humanitarian objectives,” Guterres said on a visit to Doha.
“Israel must immediately stop this madness and end its attacks,” Turkish President Erdogan wrote on X, formerly Twitter, today, after the UN General Assembly called for an “immediate humanitarian truce” in Gaza.
Erdogan later called Western powers “the main culprit” behind the Israeli army’s “massacre” of Palestinians in Gaza.
Israel has since ordered its envoy in Turkey to leave the country as a result of Ergodan’s comments.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio One this afternoon, Dr Margaret Harris, Spokesperson for the World Health Organisation (WHO), said the only solution is to have a ceasefire in the region.
“The only solution here, the only solution, is to have an immediate ceasefire. That’s on humanitarian grounds,” Harris said.
Additional reporting by Muiris O’Cearbhaill
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say