Israel says bombardment of Gaza ‘will proceed into 2025’
Israel‘s bombardment of Gaza will continue until 2025, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s national security adviser said on Wednesday.
Tzachi Hanegbi told the Israeli public broadcaster KAN that the war is expected to continue for another seven months.
He said that the Israeli army ‘is now in control of 75 per cent of the Philadelphi Route’.
‘I believe we will be in control of it all with time. Together with the Egyptians, we must ensure weapon smuggling is prevented from Egypt into Gaza,’ Hanegbi added.
Meanwhile, residents of Rafah said there have been more Israeli air strikes and that tanks had mounted raids in central and western areas.
Palestinians view the destruction after Israel bombs their tents and shelters in Rafah, Gaza on May 27
Palestinians stand around the destruction after Israel bombs their tents and shelters in Rafah on May 27
Rafah’s last hospital is barely functional and a ‘full incursion’ by Israeli troops could lead to its closure and a ‘substantial’ number of deaths, according to a senior World Health Organization (WHO) official.
Israel said it must take Rafah to achieve victory in the war, which was triggered when Hamas attacked the country on 7 October, during which about 1,200 people were killed and 252 others taken hostage.
At least 36,170 people have been killed across Gaza since the start of war, the Hamas-run health ministry claimed.
There has been an increasing international pressure on Israeli leaders to reveal a full strategy to stop the fighting.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said it was vital that Israel introduce a post-war plan as a matter of urgency if it wanted to ensure Hamas’s lasting defeat.
‘In the absence of a plan for the day after, there won’t be a day after,’ he told reporters on a visit to Moldova.
It comes as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on the Islamic world to take action against Israel in response to the latest deadly strike in the Gaza Strip.
Erdogan, 70, told lawmakers from his AKP party today that Israel represented a threat to ‘all of humanity.’
He said: ‘I have some words to say to the Islamic world: what are you waiting for to take a common decision?’ Erdogan, who leads a Muslim-majority country of 85 million people, told lawmakers from his AKP party.
Military mobility of tanks, armored personnel carriers, trucks and military jeeps belonging to the Israeli army continues on the northern border of Gaza on May 29
Palestinians examine destroyed makeshift tents after Israeli army attacks in Rafah, Gaza
‘Israel is not just a threat to Gaza but to all of humanity,’ he said.
‘No state is safe as long as Israel does not follow international law and does not feel bound by international law,’ Erdogan added, repeating an accusation that Israel is committing ‘genocide’ in Gaza.
He also called Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu a ‘vampire’, and accused him of killing ‘innocent civilians in their tents’. He also took aim at the West for being ‘complicit’ with the ongoing war in the Middle East.
‘America, this blood is also on your hands. Heads of the states in Europe, you have become complicit in Israel’s vampirism because you remained silent,’ Erdogan said.
‘No ideology sees the burning to death of innocent civilians in their tents as legitimate. The world is watching the barbarism of this vampire called Netanyahu live,’ he added.
Erdogan’s fiery comments came as the UN Security Council met to discuss a deadly Israeli attack on a displacement camp west of Rafah on Tuesday that killed 21 people, according to a civil defence official in Hamas-run Gaza.
Nearly two-dozen people were killed in the strike on the tent camp west of the city on Tuesday, just days after 45 people were killed at an encampment for displaced Palestinians that burned to ashes.
Gaza health authorities said yesterday that the second tent camp in the city had been hit, by Israeli tank shells, in an area Israel designated as a civilian evacuation zone. The IDF denied striking the area of al-Mawasi, west of Rafah.
