Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday refused to answer whether he would take responsibility for failing to prevent the\u00a0October 7 attack on Israel, saying that there would be time for such \u201cdifficult\u201d questions once the war is over. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to answer all these questions,\u201d the prime minister said, adding that, \u201cRight now, I think what we have to do is unite the country for one purpose; to achieve victory.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s focus on victory \u2013 that\u2019s my responsibility now.\u201d <\/p>\n
Netanyahu has been criticized for failing to anticipate the deadliest attack on Israel since the country\u2019s founding in 1948, when Hamas militants killed more than 1,200 people and took more than 200 hostages last month, according to Israeli authorities. <\/p>\n
During a Saturday demonstration in Tel Aviv, families of hostages held by the militant group in Gaza called on Netanyahu and the government to do more to secure the release of their loved ones. <\/p>\n
He also reiterated his stance regarding international calls for a ceasefire,\u00a0saying the only halt in fighting he would accept is \u201cone in which we have our hostages released.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re talking about stopping the fighting, that\u2019s exactly what Hamas wants,\u201d Netanyahu said, arguing that Hamas would use those extended pauses to replenish its supplies. <\/p>\n
\u201cHamas wants an endless series of pauses that basically dissipate the battle against them,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Since the October 7 attacks, Israel has been bombarding Gaza, killing at least 11,025 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, which draws figures from the Hamas-controlled territory. <\/p>\n
This toll includes 4,506 children and 3,027 women, according to the ministry, which said that over 27,000 other individuals have sustained injuries. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have designated routes to a safe zone south of Gaza City,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want all civilians to be moved out of harm\u2019s way.\u201d <\/p>\n
Netanyahu blamed Hamas for the civilian casualties and said that \u201c100 or so\u201d have already been evacuated from Al-Shifa hospital, Gaza\u2019s largest healthcare facility. \u201cThere\u2019s no reason why we can\u2019t just take the patients out of there,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Palestinian authorities in Gaza and the West Bank claimed the Israeli military had fired at people who moved between hospital buildings \u2014 an allegation the Israeli military has denied. <\/p>\n
With fighting raging, it remains a major open question about who will run post-war Gaza. <\/p>\n
This week, the US\u00a0suggested that the Palestinian Authority \u2013 which exercises limited self-rule in the occupied West Bank \u2013 could play a role. <\/p>\n
Netanyahu\u00a0said Israel\u2019s security role in a post-war Gaza would be an\u00a0\u201cover-riding, over-reaching military envelope,\u201d but did not explain what that meant. <\/p>\n
It would be accompanied by \u201ca reconstructed civilian authority \u2026 some kind of civilian Palestinian Authority\u201d\u00a0in control of Gaza that is \u201cwilling to fight the terrorists\u201d and educate children for a \u201cfuture of peace, cooperation, prosperity, cooperation with Israel,\u201d and \u201cnot the annihilation of Israel.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cSo far, that hasn\u2019t happened,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere has to be something else. Otherwise we\u2019re just falling into that same rabbit hole and we\u2019re going to have the same result. Remember the PA [Palestinian Authority] was already in Gaza,\u201d Netanyahu continued. <\/p>\n
The PA used to run both Gaza and the West Bank but was ousted after a brief civil war with Hamas. <\/p>\n\n
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday refused to answer whether he would take responsibility for failing to prevent the\u00a0October 7 attack on Israel, saying that there would be time for such \u201cdifficult\u201d questions once the war is over. \u201cWe\u2019re going to answer all these questions,\u201d the prime minister said, adding that, \u201cRight now, I <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11528,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11527","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}