Enough Israeli hostages alive to warrant war: Netanyahu

 
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview aired on Sunday that "enough" of the 132 remaining Israeli hostages held in Gaza are alive to justify Israel's ongoing war in the region. Asked how many of the hostages are still alive, Netanyahu said "enough to warrant the kind of efforts that we're doing".

"We're going to try to do our best to get all those who are alive back and, frankly, also the bodies of the dead," he said in the interview with ABC's "This Week" programme.

Netanyahu also said that one Palestinian civilian has been killed for every Hamas fighter killed in Gaza.

Health authorities in Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas, estimate about 28,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in the region since the conflict began in October.

Palestinian health authorities say around 70% of those killed are women or children under 18. The World Health Organization has described the Palestinian Health Ministry system for reporting casualties as "very good" and UN agencies regularly cite its death toll figures.

Hamas gunmen killed 1,200 Israelis and took around 250 hostages back toGaza in an Oct. 7 assault that triggered the conflict.

An armed conflict between Israel and Hamas-led Palestinian militant groups has been taking place chiefly in and around the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023. On that day, Palestinian militant groups launched a surprise attack on southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, initiating the most significant military escalation in the region, 50 years after the Yom Kippur War.[74] After clearing Hamas militants from its territory, the Israeli military embarked on an extensive aerial bombardment of the Gaza Strip followed by a large-scale ground invasion beginning on 27 October. Clashes have also occurred in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and with Hezbollah along the Israel-Lebanon border. The hostilities constitute the fifth war of the Gaza-Israel conflict since 2008, part of the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict.[75]

The war began when Hamas-led Palestinian militant groups launched a surprise offensive against Israel named "Operation Al-Aqsa Flood." The attack began with a barrage of rockets targeting Israel, while around 3,000 militants breached the Gaza-Israel barrier and attacked neighboring Israeli communities and military bases. During this attack, 1,139 Israelis and foreign nationals were killed, including 766 civilians and 373 security forces. In response, Israel declared a state of war, tightened its blockade, ordered the evacuation of the northern Gaza Strip, and launched "Operation Swords of Iron" with the stated goals of destroying Hamas, freeing the hostages and controlling the Gaza Strip. Analysts suggested that Palestinian frustration at Arab-Israeli normalization despite the ongoing blockade of Gaza and rising settler violence in the West Bank contributed to the attack by Hamas. Hamas said its attack was in response to the continued Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, the blockade of the Gaza Strip, the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements, as well as the alleged "Judaization" of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the plight of Palestinian refugees and prisoners, whom it sought to free by taking an estimated 253 Israeli and foreign captives to the Gaza Strip as leverage.

Since the start of the Israeli operation, more than 28,176 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, including over 10,000 children, 152 UN staff members, 70 journalists, and 7,000 women with another 7,000 people missing and presumed dead under the rubble of destroyed buildings. By mid-December, Israel had dropped 29,000 munitions on Gaza, destroying or damaging 70 percent of homes in the Strip. Experts say that the scale and pace of destruction in Gaza is among the most severe in recent history and may be considered domicide. A humanitarian crisis has developed in the Gaza Strip, with healthcare in a state of collapse, shortages of food, clean water, medicine and fuel due to the blockade, electricity and communications blackouts, and the UN warning of potential famine. It was widely reported that there is "no safe place in Gaza" as Israel struck areas it had previously told Palestinians to evacuate to. The widespread civilian deaths have led to accusations of war crimes against both Israel and Hamas.[112][113] Nearly all of Gaza's 2.3 million population have been internally displaced and around 250,000-500,000 Israelis were internally displaced, while thousands of Palestinians have been detained by Israel, and Israel has lost 225 additional soldiers in its invasion as of 4 February 2024.

Throughout the war, there have been widespread global protests that have primarily called for a ceasefire. A resolution calling for a humanitarian pause passed on 15 November.

During a subsequent seven-day truce, 105 Israeli and foreign hostages were exchanged for 240 Palestinian prisoners.[125] US military and diplomatic support for Israel during the war has been condemned by various human rights groups and the US left diplomatically isolated. In response to Washington's backing of Israel, Iranian-backed militias attacked American bases in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan. The US, UK and other countries also engaged in conflict with the Yemeni Houthi movement, after Houthis attacked civilian commercial ships in the Red Sea they said were linked to Israel. Houthis said they will not stop until Israel ceases its war on Gaza and allows food, medicine and fuel to reach the besieged people.

>>Agency