Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a Tuesday visit to troops fighting in Northern Gaza delivered a message of "do not stop" in their mission to eradicate Hamas. The past weekend was particularly bloody for the Israel Defense Forces, as at least 17 Israeli troops were killed. Some 250 Gazans have been killed in the last 24 hours, according to regional reports.
Netanyahu vowed to see the operation through "to the end" - at a moment there are still some 130 Israeli and foreign hostages that remain held in the Gaza Strip. Domestic pressure and pushback against his administration has only intensified, led by kidnap victims' families, who are angry that more hasn't been done to secure their release in a possible second-round ceasefire.
Egypt on Monday proposed the most comprehensive peace plan of the Gaza war yet; however, Netanyahu followed this by publishing an op-ed written in English in The Wall Street Journal wherein he rejected the prospect of achieving a permanent peace so long as Hamas remains in tact.
In the op-ed, he laid out his three-fold plan for pacifying Gaza and brining permanent peace, as Israel sees it. He said that for Israel to succeed: 1) Hamas must be destroyed, 2) Gaza must be demilitarized, and 3) Gaza must be 'deradicalized' and free of hardline Islam.
All of this strongly suggests that not only has Israel rejected the Egypt-proposed peace plan, but is also still resisting the Biden administration's calls to allow the Palestinian Authority (PA) to eventually govern Gaza after Hamas is defeated. The issue has remained an open point of contention, during which time Biden has issued some rare criticisms of Israel, including earlier this month highlighting the "indiscriminate" bombardment of civilian areas of Gaza.
In the WSJ op-ed, the Israeli leader is emphatic that the PA under Abbas will never be able to achieve demilitarization. Netanyahu wrote:
The expectation that the Palestinian Authority will demilitarize Gaza is a pipe dream. It currently funds and glorifies terrorism in Judea and Samaria and educates Palestinian children to seek the destruction of Israel. Not surprisingly it has shown neither the capability nor the will to demilitarize Gaza. It failed to do so before Hamas booted it out of the territory in 2007, and it has failed to do so in the territories under its control today. For the foreseeable future Israel will have to retain overriding security responsibility over Gaza.
Elsewhere in the op-ed Netanyahu appealed to Washington security concerns by underscoring that Hamas is a "key Iranian proxy". This as Israel has just taken out an IRGC general in an airstrike on a Damascus suburb. Radhi Mousavi was reportedly assassinated in a Monday strike, and he was believed to be Iran’s top commander in Syria.
The prime minister explained that if Hamas survives, this will only empower Iran further, and "more war and more bloodshed" will be guaranteed...
First, Hamas, a key Iranian proxy, must be destroyed. The U.S., U.K., France, Germany and many other countries support Israel’s intention to demolish the terror group. To achieve that goal, its military capabilities must be dismantled and its political rule over Gaza must end. Hamas’s leaders have vowed to repeat the Oct. 7 massacre “again and again.” That is why their destruction is the only proportional response to prevent the repeat of such horrific atrocities. Anything less guarantees more war and more bloodshed.
He also took the opportunity to address growing international pressure related to the soaring death toll in the Strip. Palestinian sources say that deaths have surpassed 20,000 - a horrific and tragic figure mostly comprised of civilians.
"Unjustly blaming Israel for these casualties will only encourage Hamas and other terror organizations around the world to use human shields," the prime minister wrote. "To render this cruel and cynical strategy ineffective, the international community must place the blame for these casualties squarely on Hamas. It must recognize that Israel is fighting the bigger battle of the civilized world against barbarism."
He vowed ultimately to press forward undeterred until Hamas is no more. "Once Hamas is destroyed, Gaza is demilitarized and Palestinian society begins a deradicalization process, Gaza can be rebuilt and the prospects of a broader peace in the Middle East will become a reality," Netanyahu wrote. However, this could take months or more likely even years, given Hamas numbers in the tens of thousands, and can hide in the extensive tunnel network under Gaza while waging a guerrilla campaign above.