Staff Reporter.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that a ceasefire in the Gaza war “will not happen” as it would amount to surrendering to the territory’s Islamist rulers Hamas.
Israeli ground forces pushed deeper into Gaza Monday, advancing in tanks and other armored vehicles on the territory’s main city and freeing a soldier held captive by Hamas militants.
The military said Tuesday it had killed one of the leaders of the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre in Israel, Nasim Abu Ajina, adding that his death “significantly harms” Hamas efforts to fight off Israeli ground forces.
Netanyahu welcomed her home, saying the “achievement” by Israel’s security forces “illustrates our commitment to free all the hostages.”
He also rejected calls for a cease-fire to facilitate the release of captives or end the war, which he has said will be long and difficult. “Calls for a cease-fire are calls for Israel to surrender to Hamas,” he told a news conference. “That will not happen.”
Netanyahu also told a press conference that other countries must give more help in the struggle to free more than 230 hostages kidnapped by Hamas in its October 7 attacks.
The Israeli leader said the international community must demand the captives “be freed immediately, unconditionally”.
He said among the captives were 33 children and Hamas was “terrorising them, keeping them as hostages”.
“Just as the United States would not agree to a ceasefire after the bombing of Pearl Harbor or after the terrorist attack of 9/11, Israel will not agree to a cessation of hostilities with Hamas after the horrific attacks of October 7,” he said at a press conference with foreign journalists.
“Calls for a ceasefire are a call for Israel to surrender to Hamas, to surrender to terrorism, to surrender to barbarism. This will not happen.”
Vowing that Israel would “fight until this battle is won”, Netanyahu said the army was going out of its way to “prevent civilian casualties” in Gaza.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says at least 8,306 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Israeli air and artillery strikes since the war erupted on October 7 after Hamas’s deadly attack on southern Israel killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians.
Source: Fullview and News Agencies.