Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Saturday that Israel’s war with Palestinian militant group Hamas will “continue for many months until Hamas is eliminated and the hostages are returned”.
“As the chief of staff said this week, the war will continue many more months,” he told a televised news conference Saturday. “My policy is clear. We will continue to fight until we have achieved all the objectives of the war, first and foremost the annihilation of Hamas and the release of all the hostages.”
More than 120 hostages remain in Gaza, after militants seized more than 240 in the Oct. 7 assault that also killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
Netanyahu is also at odds with the Biden administration over who should run Gaza after the war. He has rejected the U.S.-backed idea that a unified Palestinian government should run both Gaza and parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank as a precursor to eventual statehood. Instead, he has insisted on open-ended Israeli security control in Gaza, without saying what would come next.
