The country will not under any circumstances end the war, says Netanyahu on Tuesday.
"In the very nearest days, we will complete it with full force. Completing the operation means defeating Hamas. It means destroying Hamas," says the Prime Minister according to a statement from his office.
A temporary ceasefire may occur, but we will go all the way.
Tens of thousands of reservists have been called in over the past weeks and the Israeli government has explicitly stated that the goal is to "conquer" the Palestinian area.
According to Benjamin Netanyahu, talks are underway with other countries to take in Gaza's population.
Claims that many want
According to Israeli claims, they will in the first stage be "moved south" for security reasons, but the stated plan seems to imply that the Palestinian people will be completely driven out of the area.
The plan that the US President Donald Trump previously presented, together with Israel, which was said to aim at rebuilding the Gaza Strip, assumes that its inhabitants will move away "voluntarily", which they have not given any public signals of wanting to do since most Palestinians' starting point is that Gaza is a smaller part of a homeland.
Netanyahu claims in his appearance on Tuesday that "over 50 percent" of Palestinians will want to leave if given the opportunity. A significant part of the people living in war-torn Gaza has been living in tents for a long time, in a rapidly escalating starvation crisis where Israel resumed airstrikes a few weeks ago, after a shorter and fragile ceasefire.
Israel's ultra-nationalist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said a week ago that Israel will win, that the Gaza Strip will thus be "completely destroyed" and that its population will eventually be forced away to entirely different countries.
Opponents in Israel – including former government representatives and relatives of hostages held by Hamas – criticize the government for acting based on its own political survival and not Israel's security.
