Netanyahu visits the troops and announces the “intensification” of fighting in Gaza: the anger of the hostages’ families

On the same day it emerged that Egypt had presented a proposal to this effect to the international community end the war in GazaIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that war It will be long and the fighting will be more intense. In a speech he also asked for more time to free the hostages still held by Hamas was interrupted by the screams of relatives.

Netanyahu visited troops in Gaza for the first time. And then he addressed Parliament, assuring that “in the coming days they will intensify the fighting in a war that will be long”.

But eighty days after the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, the scenario appears complicated. The Israeli army suffered more than fifteen casualties over the past weekend and the heavy rains of the last few days have literally muddied the military ground operation.

Israel plans the transition from intensive offensive activity to selective operations in various areas of the Gaza Strip, while strengthening the attacks against the city of Khan Yunis, where the Hamas leaders are said to have taken refuge.

Israel is preparing to do so delimit a safety strip along more than a kilometer of the border between Israel and Gaza and work is already underway to level the area.

Egyptian sources said Hamas and Islamic Jihad rejected the proposal to give up their rule in the Gaza Strip and release more hostages in exchange for a permanent ceasefire.

The proposal, which received Qatar’s support, included holding elections in the Strip and protecting Hamas and Islamic Jihad from persecution and prosecution.

Netanyahu also does not appear to support the Egyptian proposal. He visited the troops and uploaded the meeting to the networks, where he wrote:

With his “the war continues until the end”, Netanyahu made it clear that there will be no respite.

Harassed by the hostages’ families

Addressing Parliament, Netanyahu was booed by the families of the hostages.

On Monday, the families of the Israeli hostages held in Gaza interrupted the speech of the prime minister who declared this in front of Parliament I needed “more time” to keep his promise to save the prisoners.

“Now! Now!” the relatives shouted when the prime minister explained that Israeli forces needed “more time” to free the 129 hostages, out of around 240 initially, taken to Gaza after the bloody incursion of Islamic commandos into southern Israel on 7 October.

A one-week respite at the end of November allowed the release of 105 hostages80 of whom were exchanged for 240 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons.

“What if it was your son”, “80 days, every minute is hell”, read the banners raised by the families in Parliament, which held a special session dedicated to the hostages.

Assuring that no effort will be “spared” to secure his release, Netanyahu said that this will only be possible if “military pressure” was maintained.

The Israeli leader explained that he spoke with military commanders on site and they told him so They needed “more time.”

“We won’t stop until we win”

“We cannot stop the war until we have achieved victory against those who seek our lives,” he declared. “We will not rest until we win.”

In Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israeli soil on October 7, around 1,140 people, mostly civilians, were killed, according to an AFP tally based on the latest official data.

At least 20,674 people – mostly women and minors – have died in Gaza since the start of the Israeli army’s offensive in retaliation for the attack, according to Hamas authorities, in power in the Palestinian enclave.