Posted on 08/10/25
| News Source: Arutz-7
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a press conference in English on Sunday following the Security Cabinet's decision to take control of Gaza.
"Hamas still has thousands of armed terrorists in Gaza. They vow to repeat the savagery of the October 7th Massacre and to do so again, and again, and again. It openly professes its goals to destroy Israel. It subjugates Gazans, it steals their food, and it shoots them when they try to move to safe zones. It's instructive that now, many Gazans are fighting back. They're begging us and the world, 'Free us, and free Gaza from Hamas,'" Netanyahu opened.
He continued: "No nation could accept a genocidal terrorist organization, an organization committed to its annihilation, a stone's throw from its citizens. Our goal is not to occupy Gaza; our goal is to free Gaza. Free it from Hamas terrorists. The war can end tomorrow if Hamas lays down its arms and releases all the remaining hostages."
Netanyahu described a post-war Gaza: "Gaza will be demilitarized; Israel will have overriding security responsibility; a security zone will be established on Gaza's border with Israel to prevent future terrorist encursions; a civilian administration would be established in Gaza that will seek to live in peace with Israel."
He added, "Given Hamas's refusal to lay down its arms, Israel has to finish the job and complete the defeat of Hamas."
The Prime Minister noted that between 70-75% of the Gaza Strip is currently under Israeli military control, and what remains is Gaza City and the central camps. "Last week, the Security Cabinet instructed the IDF to dismantle the Hamas strongholds in Gaza City and the central camps. Contrary to false claims, this is the best way to end the war and the best way to end it speedily."
He explained that Israel will first enable the civilian population to leave the combat areas safely to safe zones where they will receive ample aid and medical care.
Addressing the claims of starvation, Netanyahu insisted, "Israel has let in close to 2 million tons of aid. I know of no other army that has enabled such aid to go to the civilian population in enemy territory. If we had a starvation policy, no one in Gaza would have survived after two years of war. But our policy has been the exact opposite.
"In the last few months, Hamas has violently looted the aid trucks meant to get to Palestinian civilians. They deliberately created a shortage of supplies, and the UN continuously refused, until recently, to distribute the thousands of trucks that we let into Gaza through the Kerem Shalom Crossing. We've had tons of uncollected food rotting on the Gazan side of the border because the UN was and still is unwilling to deliver all of it."
He presented three ways that Israel planned to overcome the obstacles preventing aid from reaching civilians: "Designating safe corridors for humanitarian aid distribution, you can go, you can drive trucks there, and you'll be safe. Second: increasing the number of safe distribution points managed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. And three: airdrops by the Israeli Air Force, and we invite others to join us. The result has been a humanitarian surge, which we are coordinating with President Trump and his team, and hundreds of trucks have gone in recent days."
Netanyahu added, "The only ones who are being deliberately starved in Gaza are our hostages."
Circling back to the accusations of starvation, Netanyahu stated, "That distortion is being echoed around the earth, the way that Jewish people were maligned in the Middle Ages. Every massacre of the Jewish people was preceded by massive vilification. We were said to be spreading vermin to Christian society. We were said to be poisoning the wells. We were said to have slaughtered Christian children for their blood. As these lies spread around the globe, they were followed by horrific massacres, pogroms, and displacements, culminating in the worst massacre of them all - the Holocaust. Today, the Jewish State is being maligned in a similar way."
Asked about a timeline for the new offensive, the Prime Minister stated that he hopes it is done "fairly quickly" and described that he expects the evacuation of civilians to be as successful as that which was implemented in Rafah.
Regarding US President Donald Trump's statements that there is starvation in the Gaza Strip, Netanyahu responded: "I very much appreciate President Trump's support in this entire seven-front war, his magnificent cooperation in the battle to stop the existential threat from Iran, and his support throughout, his support now... I think that, like me, he recognizes that there have been deprivations in Gaza, caused by Hamas, and what we have to do is overcome them. So we've been working together to overcome it."
The Prime Minister reiterated that his goal is to get all the 20 living hostages "out alive, as well as all the ones who are not alive. At the beginning of the war, we were told by a very senior commander that we had to get used to the idea that we're not even going to see one of them alive, and I disagreed. I said we'll get most, if not all of them, if we apply both military pressure and diplomatic pressure. So far, out of 255 hostages, we have 205 back, of which 148 are alive. We have 20 living still in Hamas captivity and 30 who are not alive."
He added that a "war of attrition from defensive positions has not proven itself. It won't get them out, and it will just prolong the war. The move that I'm talking about, I think, has the possibility of getting them out. We are talking about how to get the remaining hostages alive as we close in on Hamas. There are various creative ways for this to be done."
Addressing the German arms embargo, Netanyahu stated that while Chancellor Friedrich Mertz is a good friend of Israel, "He has buckled under the pressure of TV reports and pressure from various groups. I don't want to talk about him specifically. Some chose to forget that October 7th happened, we will not forget, and we will do whatever it takes to defend our country and defend our people. We will win the war, with or without the support of others."
He claimed that many leaders told him, "We know you're right, but we can't stand in the face of public opinion in our country." To this, Netanyahu says he responded: "That is your problem, not our problem."