Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said that the country was “one step away from victory” in the Gaza war.
He vowed there would be no truce until Hamas releases all hostages.
“We are one step away from victory,” Netanyahu declared during a cabinet meeting commemorating six months since the conflict began on October 7, following an attack by Hamas militants on Israel, the AFP reported.
“But the price we paid is painful and heartbreaking,” Israeli Prime Minister noted.
As truce talks were anticipated to resume in Cairo with international mediators, Netanyahu affirmed, “There will be no ceasefire without the return of hostages.
It just won’t happen.” He emphasised, “Israel is ready for a deal, Israel is not ready to surrender.”
Additionally, Netanyahu emphasised that rather than directing international pressure at Israel, which only serves to harden Hamas’s positions, the international community should focus its pressure on Hamas.
“This will advance the release of the hostages,” he added.
During the meeting, Netanyahu also accused Iran of orchestrating multiple attacks against Israel “through its proxies.”
“Anyone who hurts us or plans to hurt us — we will hurt him.
We put this principle into practice, all the time and in recent days,” Netanyahu added.
Concerns regarding the potential escalation of the conflict in Gaza have heightened following Iran’s declaration to retaliate for the deaths of seven of its Revolutionary Guards in an airstrike on Monday targeting the consular annex of its embassy in Syria’s Damascus.
Iranian authorities have affirmed their commitment to respond, while Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, has labelled the consulate strike as a “turning point.”
Earlier today, a top Iranian military adviser issued a warning to Israel, cautioning that none of its embassies were secure in the wake of a strike in Damascus. The attack, attributed to Israel, resulted in the deaths of 12 individuals, including two high-ranking Iranian generals.
“None of the embassies of the (Israeli) regime are safe anymore,” General Rahim Safavi, a military adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, stated, as quoted by the semi-official Tasnim agency.
Safavi delivered his statement during a memorial ceremony in Tehran commemorating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard generals who were killed in the strike.
