Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Sunday that it is near victory as the country pulled troops out of southern Gaza while maintaining a “significant force” elsewhere in Gaza.
"We are one step away from victory,” he told his Cabinet. “But the price we paid is painful and heartbreaking," reports Voice of America.
Even as stalled cease-fire negotiations resume in Cairo, Netanyahu pledged, "There will be no cease-fire without the return of hostages. It just won't happen."
Hamas is believed to still be holding about 100 hostages in Gaza tunnels, among the 250 or so it captured in its shock October 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people. As of mid-February, 112 hostages have been freed, most during a week-long cease-fire in November, while 36 more are believed to have died or been killed in Gaza during the six months of fighting.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says Israel’s counter-offensive has killed more than 33,000 people, two-thirds of them women and children. The Israeli military says that the total includes thousands of militants it has killed.
Netanyahu said that despite growing international pressure, including from its chief ally, the United States, Israel would not give in to "extreme" demands from Gaza's Islamist rulers, Hamas, that it pull all its troops from the narrow territory along the Mediterranean Sea.
At a demand last week from U.S. President Joe Biden, Israel agreed to open a new humanitarian aid roadway at Erez at the northern Gaza border with Israel, but operations there have yet to start. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are famished, with many sheltering in makeshift tents near Rafah at the Egyptian border in southern Gaza.
Bd-pratidin English/Lutful Hoque
