Journalism of Courage
Israel will achieve all goals of the Gaza war it had set out to accomplish, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday. Netanyahu, along with Israel’s President Isaac Herzog, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, the heads of Israel’s security establishment, ministers, Knesset members, and families of those killed on October 7, 2023, attended the official state memorial ceremony of the Hamas terror attack.
Speaking at the event held at Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl cemetery, Netanyahu called on Israel to be united, as “great challenges still remain ahead.”
“We will achieve all our goals only through internal cohesion, mutual responsibility, and by strengthening what unites us over what divides us,” he said.
Remembrance Day was commemorated days after Hamas returned all 20 living hostages after two years of captivity. Hamas also returned nine of the 28 bodies of slain hostages in the past three days. But there is no clarity on the return of the remaining bodies, as Hamas is reportedly unable to locate them.
Netanyahu on Thursday says Israel is “committed to bringing back every last” hostage. He also vowed to keep fighting and said that the country has sent a message to its enemies.
“The struggle is not over. But one thing is clear today: Anyone who raises a hand against us already knows he will pay a very heavy price for his aggression,” he said. “We are determined to complete the victory that will shape the order of our lives for many years.”
The two years of war have killed over 67,000 people in Palestine, and many countries and international organizations have accused Israel of committing genocide.
Netanyahu rejected the allegations and said that genocide is what Hamas did on October 7, 2023.
“We received a shocking illustration of the expression ‘genocide,’” the Israeli PM said, adding that he is “not talking about a fictitious genocide.”
“If those murderers had been able to do more, they would have slaughtered every one of us. This is the real genocide,” Netanyahu said.
According to Netanyahu, the Hamas terror attack alerted Israel to the intention of the “regime in Iran and its terror branches to strangle Israel to death in a ring of deadly fire.”
“But our enemies did not calculate one thing: the power within us. We rose to our feet as one,” he said. “We shifted the focus of battle into enemy territory; we struck it with crushing blows.”
