Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday called for the opposition to join an emergency unity government, outlined Israel’s battle plan against Hamas terror, likened the group to the Islamic State group, or ISIS, and warned of more “difficult days ahead” for the battered and bleeding nation.
“We are on the third day of the operation,” he said during a televised address to the nation, his first public appearance since Saturday night. “We are in an operation for our home, a war to ensure our existence, a war that we will win.”
“This war was imposed upon us by a despicable enemy — by savages who celebrate the murder of women, children, and the elderly,” he said. “The atrocities carried out by Hamas have not been seen since the atrocities of ISIS. Children bound and executed with the rest of their families, young girls and boys shot in the back, executed, and other atrocities that I will not describe here.”
“We have always known what Hamas is. Now the whole world knows. Hamas is ISIS,” Netanyahu said. “We will defeat [Hamas] precisely as the enlightened world defeated ISIS.”
He said he had ordered five actions at the start of the war.
First, to defeat terrorists still in Israel and prevent others from ending, in an operation that was still ongoing.
For the next step, he ordered a move to a massive, unprecedented offensive operation that was underway. Hundreds of thousands of reserves have been called up to service.
Third, he aimed to keep other fronts quiet — in the north, facing the Hezbollah terror group, in the West Bank, and inside Israel. The West Bank and northern border have seen some violence since the Hamas onslaught. Netanyahu praised the security forces for their work in all those areas.
He said Israel has only just begun to hit Hamas and that the pictures of destruction in Gaza “are only the start. We have wiped out hundreds of terrorists and we won’t stop there.”
Wherever Hamas operates, “we will turn into a city of ruins.”
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