Israel: Israel’s national security adviser says the war on Gaza is expected to continue until the end of the year.
Tzachi Hanegbi stated that “we are expecting another seven months of fighting” to dismantle the governmental and military capacities of both Hamas and the smaller Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) organization in an interview with Israel’s Kan public radio on Wednesday.
Almost eight months into the attack, Israel is becoming more and more isolated on the international front, and even the US and other close allies have expressed indignation over the number of civilian deaths. This is when he made these remarks.
In defence of Israel’s continuous operations in Rafah, on Gaza’s border with Egypt, Hanegbi claimed that since Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007, the area has developed into a “smuggling kingdom.”
The army now has “operational control” over the small Philadeplhi Corridor, which was established as a buffer zone between Egypt and Gaza as part of the 1979 peace pact between Israel and Egypt, according to an Israeli military official later on Wednesday.
Army spokesman Daniel Hagari stated in a speech that “our forces have taken operational control of the Philadelphi Corridor in recent days.”
The majority of the population in Gaza has already been forced to flee their homes due to Israel’s attack, which has also caused a humanitarian crisis and widespread hunger. Israel asserts that it must destroy Hamas’s final battalions in Rafah and declares that it will pursue security control over the Gaza Strip indefinitely.
Hamas has reiterated that it will stay in Gaza and opposed any postwar plan that would remove the group.
NGOs and labour unions proclaimed Gaza to be a “famine-stricken” area, and the Rafah offensive has killed scores of Palestinians so far.
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