Israel categorically excludes any ceasefire in Gaza, under any circumstances, whatever the international community says or pressures, “because it would be surrendering to Hamas. This is a struggle of civilization against barbarism. I trust and pray that civilized nations will support our struggle,” a defiant Israeli Prime Minister Beniamin Netanyahu said last night, in words addressed to an outside audience.
Although the figures from Gaza are overwhelming – 8,300 dead, a third fewer, according to Hamas authorities – the Israeli prime minister made a passionate appeal to Western countries in the name of the values that distinguish them. “Israel's fight is your fight,” he stated to try to reverse the current of international opinion in favor of a ceasefire in the strip, in view of the deterioration of the living conditions of its more than two million inhabitants after 23 days of war
For Netanyahu, history supports the resounding and explicit rejection expressed this Monday of a possible ceasefire. In his opinion – and there are many Israelis who share this version – Israel has given the civilian population of Gaza weeks to move to the south, something that many Palestinians have not been able to do because Hamas has prevented them from doing so “at gunpoint.” sometimes, always according to the prime minister's thesis.
Netanyahu's statements, to whom few Israelis give a political future once the war ends, were full of historical references to defend the right to end Hamas in any way because they amount to barbarism. Even in the most just wars, “there have been civilian deaths.” And he mentioned a little-known episode of the Second World War, unlike others mentioned this Monday such as Pearl Harbor or the recent September 11, 2001. It is an air attack by the British RAF on the Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen in 1944. The pilots missed and their bombs fell on a nearby school. “No one stopped the fight against Nazism” because of it, he said.
Netanyahu does well on television – the future that awaits him for his responsibility in the security fiasco of October 7 is another thing – and he resorted to the same moral and argumentative tone heard from other leaders since the attacks of September 11, 2001. in United States. Some phrases, for example, seemed to be copied from those used by President George W. Bush to justify the invasions of Afghanistan or Iraq. “Israel is fighting the enemies of civilization” and he referred to Hamas as “the barbarians, the world of fear and darkness.” Lastly, a quote: “The Bible says there is a time for peace and a time for war. And now is the time of war.”
In parallel, Israel intensifies the offensive in Gaza and boasts of having killed “dozens of terrorists” in buildings and tunnels since the beginning, on Friday, of the ground phase and of already having armored and infantry units in the surroundings of the City of Gaza in what appears to be a maneuver to cut the strip in two. The two parties provide limited and partial information, which makes it impossible to determine at this point who is progressing in their objectives and their cost in human lives.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) claimed to have freed a female soldier, Ori Megidish, kidnapped by Hamas, during ground operations. Her health was good and she had been able to reunite with her family.
The deterioration of daily life in Gaza has only been alleviated by the return of communications – a concession that Washington claimed this Monday – and the promise of a substantial increase in humanitarian aid in the coming hours. It remains to be seen whether UNRWA, the UN agency for the Palestinians, can reestablish control of its warehouses and supply points. Four of them have been left inoperative after the assault on the population on Sunday. “Right now people are in survivor mode,” described a spokesperson for the organization.
