Israeli war on Gaza ‘far from over,’ says Netanyahu

JERUSALEM

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that the war on the Gaza Strip “was far from over.”

"We are not stopping. We are continuing to fight,” Netanyahu said during a meeting with lawmakers from his right-wing Likud Party.

“We will be intensifying the fighting in the coming days, and the fighting will take long and it is not close to concluding," he added.

The Israeli premier argued that military pressure will succeed in freeing hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

"We wouldn't have succeeded up until now to release more than 100 hostages without military pressure," Netanyahu said during a special parliamentary session attended by families of hostages.

“We need time,” added Netanyahu, who was interrupted several times by the relatives of the hostages who urged him to work "now" for their release.

According to Israeli media, there are nearly 130 hostages held by Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip.

Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7, killing at least 20,674 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 54,536 others, according to local health authorities.

Around 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

The Israeli onslaught has left Gaza in ruins, with half of the coastal territory's housing damaged or destroyed and nearly 2 million people displaced within the densely populated enclave amid shortages of food and clean water.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar