Netanyahu hails Israel’s blocking of Palestinian state at settler event: Report
Israeli news outlet Haaretz has reported on comments Netanyahu made at an event hosted by the Binyamin Regional Council, an Israeli settlement body, to celebrate 17 new illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
“We are now coming from a cabinet meeting. I don’t think I can expand too much, but I will say one thing – it started in Gaza and it will end in Gaza,” Haaretz quoted the Israeli prime minister as saying.
“We will not leave these monsters there, we will release all our hostages, we will make sure Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel,” Netanyahu said, according to the report.
“I promised 25 years ago that we would deepen our roots, and we did, together. I said we would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and we are doing it, together. I said we would build and hold on to parts of our country, our homeland, and we are doing so,” he added.
Israelis rally in Tel Aviv to demand captives’ release
Tens of thousands of protesters march in Tel Aviv
Protests in Israel needs to be ‘durable’ to succeed
Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli diplomat, says protests in Israel calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and the return of the remaining captives need to be sustained, durable and resilient if they are going to force the government to change its policies.
“They need to be out every day,” Pinkas told Al Jazeera. “This needs not to be 120,000, which is what we have in Tel Aviv right now. It needs to be half a million or a million.”
Unless this happens, Pinkas said, Netanyahu can “weather the storm”, adding that the Israeli prime minister is not being impacted by international pressure to cease the war on Gaza.
“What you see right now is a country completely at odds and disconnected from the government,” Pinkas said.
Protesters demand the release of captives held in Gaza during a rally in Tel Aviv on August 26
