Middle East: Netanyahu wants to end Gaza War “as soon as possible”

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to end the war against Islamist Hamas in the Gaza Strip “as soon as possible”. “That is why I have instructed the Israeli forces to shorten the schedule for taking the city of Gaza,” he said, according to the “Times of Israel” in a press conference for Israeli media in Jerusalem.

The security cabinet led by Netanyahus had decided on Friday that the military should take the city of Gaza – possibly with the aim of taking control of the entire coastal area. The decision in this regard is vague in terms of the temporal framework. Media reported that the army would take two months for the corresponding preparations.

For example, around one million Palestinians who are currently in the city of Gaza would have to move to areas that are not affected by the planned battle operation. There, a corresponding infrastructure with dwellings, food and water supply and hospitals would have to be created for people. After 22 months of war, the Gaza Strip is largely destroyed.

Israel’s army would have to convene hundreds of thousands of reservists. You would have to repair, replace and put in a broken and worn war device. The general staff will be able to cheap the “basic ideas” for use against the city of Gaza by the end of the week, the news portal “Ynet” reported on Sunday. According to media reports, army chief Ejal Zamir is skeptical about the project.

No specific schedules

In his media appearances on Sunday, Netanyahu was not more specific apart from the urge to an accelerated implementation of the military operation. “The time horizon we set for this campaign is quite tight,” he said in an international press conference that took place a few hours before the Israeli media. “I don’t want to talk about exact schedules,” he continued, “but we speak of fairly short schedules, because we want to put the war to an end.”

According to Netanyahu’s representation, Israel is currently controlling around three quarters of the sealed coastal strip, in which a total of around two million Palestinians live. In the areas remaining outside of Israeli control – the city of Gaza and the refugee districts in the middle Gaza Strip – are still said to be command centers and positions of Hamas.

Critics see the life of hostages in danger

The last 50 hostages in the violence of the Islamists are also suspected there. According to Israeli assessment, 20 of them are said to be alive. Critics of the planned expansion of military operation, among them most of the hostages, fear that the lives of kidnapped people would endanger. Netanyahu, in turn, said in his media appearances: “We will defeat Hamas and thus free the hostages.”

Opposition leader Jair Lapid reacted to these statements with sarcastic criticism. “What Netanyahu has served us today means that hostages and soldiers will die that the economy will collapse and that our international reputation will be ruined,” he wrote on the platform X.