[News] ‘Not Invading Rafah Means Losing the War’ - Netanyahu

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palestinechronicle.com
<https://www.palestinechronicle.com/not-invading-rafah-means-losing-the-war-netanyahu/>
‘Not Invading Rafah Means Losing the War’ - NetanyahuFebruary 11, 2024
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the Israeli army commando
brigade in the northern area. (Photo: via Prime Minister of Israel TW Page)

*By Palestine Chronicle Staff
<https://www.palestinechronicle.com/writers/palestine-chronicle-staff>*

Rightwing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that
calls not to invade the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah are calls for
Israel to lose the war.

His comments coincided with another statement by Israeli Defense Minister
Yoav Gallant who said that deepening the military operation in Gaza would
bring Israel closer to what he described as a ‘realistic agreement’ for
prisoner exchange with the Palestinian Resistance.
*‘Losing the War’*

In an interview
<https://abcnews.go.com/International/netanyahu-this-week-interview/story?id=107130717>
with the American news network, ABC, Netanyahu said “Those who say that
under no circumstances should we enter Rafah are basically saying lose the
war. Keep Hamas there.”

He confirmed that the intention of the Israeli army to enter Rafah is still
there, claiming that the Israeli army is about to reach the last Hamas
battalions in the city, which he considered to be the last stronghold of
Palestinian fighters in Gaza.

Netanyahu has made similar claims about other Palestinian towns and regions
in the past, initially claiming that Hamas’ stronghold is northern Gaza,
and particularly in tunnels under the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

Later, he claimed that the southern city of Khan Younis is the ‘capital of
Hamas,” before shifting focus to Rafah, which has been bombed repeatedly
since the start of the war, but not attacked through a ground force.

In a separate interview, this time with Fox News, Netanyahu said that the
only way that Israel is able to free its prisoners in Gaza is through
defeating the Palestinian Resistance Movement, Hamas.

While there are reportedly over 100 Israeli prisoners, most of them
military men and women, in Gaza, Israel holds 9,000 Palestinian political
prisoners.
*‘Realistic Agreement’ *

Also commenting on the same issue, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant
said the army’s deepening of its military operation in the Gaza Strip
brought Tel Aviv closer to a ‘realistic’ deal to repatriate detainees in
Gaza.

This came in a speech by Gallant that was broadcast by the official Israeli
broadcaster, KAN. In the background, there were rockets and other weapons
allegedly belonging to the Palestinian Resistance.

For its part, Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa TV quoted a Hamas official as saying
that any attack in the city would lead to the collapse of prisoner exchange
negotiations.

Qatar, Egypt, and Washington are reportedly making efforts to reach a new
prisoner exchange agreement, but there are differences over the terms of
the agreement, most notably related to Hamas’s condition of a permanent end
to the war.

Israel wants to release its prisoners and carry on with its genocidal war
on the Strip. According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 28,176 Palestinians
have been killed, and 67,784 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza
starting on October 7.

Moreover, at least 8,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under
the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.

Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those
killed and wounded are women and children.

The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of
nearly two million people from all of the Gaza Strip, with the vast
majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of
Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest
mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.

*(The Palestine Chronicle) *
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