Netanyahu says Israel to go into Gaza to ‘subdue Hamas’ in coming days
Israel’s prime minister has said that “we in the coming days will be entering with all our strength to complete the process… to subdue Hamas,” Israeli newspaper Haaretz has reported.
“It could be that Hamas will say ‘Pause, we want to release another 10 hostages,’” Netanyahu said while meeting Israeli wounded soldiers, adding that in that case they would stop and enter afterwards.
“But there will not be a situation where we stop the war,” he added.
Netanyahu also reiterated previous claims that his government had established an agency to oversee a transfer plan for Gaza’s population. “But there is one problem, we need countries to receive them. This is what we are working on right now,” he added.
“If you give them an exit, I am telling you that more than 50 percent will leave, in my opinion many more.”
Netanyahu promises to ‘go to the end’ to finish Hamas
Netanyahu says there’s “no way” Israel will halt its war on Gaza even if a deal is reached to release more captives.
In comments released by his office from a visit to wounded soldiers, Netanyahu said Israeli forces are just days away from a promised escalation of force and would enter Gaza “with great strength to complete the mission. … It means destroying Hamas.”
Any ceasefire reached would be temporary, the prime minister added. If Hamas were to say it would release more captives, “we’ll take them. and then we’ll go in. But there will be no way we will stop the war. We can make a ceasefire for a certain period of time, but we’re going to the end.”
The comments are likely to complicate talks on a new ceasefire that seemed to gain momentum after Hamas released its last living American captive on Monday in a gesture to Trump, who is visiting the region but is not coming to Israel.
The statement points to a potentially widening rift between Netanyahu and Trump, who expressed hope Monday’s release would be a step towards permanently ending the 19-month war.
Universities holding Nakba memorials will see funds cut: Israel minister
Any Israeli university where students hold events to commemorate the Nakba – the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948 – will have their funding cut, Education Minister Yoav Kisch has warned.
In a post on X, he published a letter to far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich demanding funds be denied to Israel’s Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University after Nakba commemorations were held there.
“Academia is not a platform for incitement under the guise of freedom of expression,” Kisch wrote, claiming the events at the two universities are “part of a broader and worrying phenomenon”.
Students have been holding similar pro-Palestine events in universities across the world, particularly in the United States. Kisch particularly attacked Tel Aviv University President Ariel Porat, urging him to “look and learn what is happening in the US to universities that commemorate Nakba Day”.
