Israel loses patience with Netanyahu
Some 70 Hamas fighters have “surrendered with their weapons” at a hospital in northern Gaza as military and civilian casualties continue apace in the war-torn enclave.
Fighting had raged near the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahiya on a day when the IDF said “many terrorists” had been killed.
It comes as Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defence minister, told White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan that defeating Hamas would take longer than “several months” due to its “infrastructure under the ground and above the ground”. But Gallant added: “We will win and we will destroy them.”
In London, Tzipi Hotovely, the Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom, came under serious criticism when she said that a two-state solution was impossible. When asked whether a two-state solution was viable, she replied: “The answer is absolutely no.”
She added: “I think it’s about time for the world to realize that the Oslo paradigm failed on the 7th of October and we need to build a new one. The reason the Oslo Accords failed is because the Palestinians never wanted to have a state next to Israel. They want to have a state from the river to the sea.”
A longtime member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, Hotovely was then met with a staff walkout at an Israeli fundraiser at the Royal Society of Arts. David Cameron, foreign secretary, said her comments were “disappointing”. Earlier today he had posted on social media a clear denunciation of settler extremists in the West Bank.
On Tuesday, global disapproval of IDF strategy in the Gaza Strip became clear with a UN General Assembly resolution demanding a ceasefire to the “indiscriminate” bombing of civilians. Of the 193 UN members, 153 voted in favour, 23 abstained (including the UK) and 10 voted against (including the U.S. and Israel).
Still, the non-binding vote is unlikely to have any bearing on what Israel does – there are still 134 Israeli hostages in Gaza from the 7 October attacks. The Hamas-run health ministry says that 18,700 Palestinians have been killed and 50,000 injured since the start of the war. The IDF has lost 116 soldiers since the ground invasion on 27 October, taking the total to 445 since 7 October.
The already unpopular Netanyahu is becoming more so after this week he was seen to be campaigning with post-war elections on his mind. The opposition leader, Yair Lapid, called his stunts an “evil political campaign at a time like this”. It was also leaked that Netanyahu compared the Oslo accords to the Hamas attacks saying they both killed the same number of Israelis.
Perhaps Netanyahu should seek sage counsel from one of his officials who told an Israeli newspaper: “There are some things that are best not said while half a million troops are inside Gaza and thousands of others are grieving, mourning and worried about their loved ones’ fate in Hamas captivity.”
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