Tuesday, December 5, 2023

Updates From Times Of Israel

Updates From Times Of Israel

The Times of Israel is liveblogging Tuesday



Gallant says no legitimacy to quit fighting, claims Hamas losing power, support

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant says it would be “illegitimate” for Israel to halt its offensive aimed at toppling the Hamas terror group.

“There is only one legitimate thing: to defeat Hamas… and bring home the hostages,” he says, at a press conference alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister Benny Gantz.

“There is no more justified war than this,” Gallant says. “We are fighting a war of no choice, because if we do not end it with victory, our lives in this region will not be lives,” he says.

Speaking after the IDF updated its death toll since the start of the ground offensive to 82, Gallant mourns the fallen soldiers, many of whom he says he knew personally.

“There is only one way to justify the sacrifice — victory,” he says.

Gallant proclaims that “Hamas is gradually losing control” and that the IDF is fighting “at the height of our power.”

Noting that five days have passed since the ground operation resumed, he says the IDF has widened its operations from the north to the south of the strip.

“What happened in Gaza City is happening now in Khan Younis… with impressive results,” says the minister, noting that he has been observing IDF operations in northern Gaza.

Biden: World cannot look away from horrific Hamas atrocities against women’s bodies

US President Joe Biden says at a fundraiser in Boston that the world must condemn sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas terrorists, recounting testimony of horrific rape and mutilation carried out against Israeli women on and after October 7.

“Reports of women raped — repeatedly raped — and their bodies being mutilated while still alive — of women corpses being desecrated, Hamas terrorists inflicting as much pain and suffering on women and girls as possible and then murdering them. It is appalling,” he says.

“The world can’t just look away at what’s going on. It’s on all of us — government, international organizations, civil society and businesses — to forcefully condemn the sexual violence of Hamas terrorists without equivocation. Without equivocation, without exception,” he adds.


Netanyahu claims half of Hamas’s battalion commanders killed

Speaking at a press conference, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he sympathizes with the intolerable suffering of those whose loved ones are still being held hostage.

He says there is “a vast intelligence factory” working 24 hours a day on every scrap of information, as part of the effort “to return all of the hostages safely — female and male soldiers, male and female citizens, young and old.”

“We’re on the right path,” he says.”We managed to bring 110 hostages home,” he says, because of the ground operation and the diplomatic effort combined.

“That’s the only way to get the rest of the hostages home,” he says.

“Hamas wanted to tear us apart; we are tearing it apart.”

Netanyahu highlights the IDF’s achievements in killing “about half of Hamas’s battalion commanders.”

The terror group is understood to have some 24 battalions fighting in Gaza.

He vows that Gaza will “never again pose a threat to Israel. There will be no forces that support terror, educate for terror, finance terror and the families of terrorists,” he says, in an implied reference to the Palestinian Authority.

Gaza “must be demilitarized,” he says. “And the only force that can ensure this is the IDF. No international force can be responsible for this… I’m not prepared to close my eyes and accept any other arrangement.”


‘Where the hell are you?’ Netanyahu pans rights groups for silence on Hamas rape

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu castigates human rights groups, women’s groups and the UN for failing to speak out about the rapes and other atrocities committed by Hamas against Israeli women.

Speaking at a press conference in Tel Aviv alongside Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Minister Benny Gantz, the prime minister notes that he met earlier with released hostages and with relatives of those still held hostage, a meeting described as hostile and stormy by those present.

“I heard heartbreaking stories of abuse,” he says. “I heard, as you have heard, about sexual abuse and unprecedented cases of cruel rape.”

But, he says, he hasn’t heard women’s groups and human rights groups “scream” about this.

“Were you silent because it was Jewish women?” he asks.

Switching to English, Netanyahu says: “I say to the women’s rights organizations, to the human rights organizations, you’ve heard of the rape of Israeli women, horrible atrocities, sexual mutilation? Where the hell are you?” he asks.

“I expect all civilized leaders, governments, nations to speak up against this atrocity,” he adds, before switching back to Hebrew.




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