Sanctions must be imposed on countries that harbor Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said as he told world leaders that Israel was battling the ISIS-like terror group on behalf of the civilized world.
“This is the front line between civilization and barbarism and we have to ensure that nobody meets with the barbarians,” Netanyahu said during a meeting he held with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
As Israel prepared for a ground operation in Gaza to eliminate Hamas, Netanyahu visited soldiers along the Gaza border and toured a number of the communities – Kibbutz Be’eri and Kfar Aza – hard hit by Hamas’s October 7 assault on southern Israel in which over 1,300 civilians and soldiers were killed and more than 150 were taken hostage.
“Prepare for what is coming,” he said.
Israeli and American officials held a flurry of high-level diplomatic conversations over the weekend in an attempt to contain regional violence, free the hostages, and provide a humanitarian corridor for Palestinians in Gaza to flee to Egypt.
National Security Adviser Tsahi Hanegbi stressed that Israel is not looking to fight a war on two fronts and has no intention of attacking Hezbollah. “However, as we know, there are regular Hezbollah attacks from Lebanon.”
The IDF called up hundreds of thousands of reservists, most to support the war in the South but some have been sent up North. “Our eyes are open on both fronts,” he said.
Netanyahu spoke on Saturday with US President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. On Friday, he held meetings with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Von der Leyen.
Foreign Ministers from Canada, Italy and Germany also visited Israel on Friday and the French Foreign Minister is due on Sunday.
Netanyahu focused on the atrocities Hamas committed against Israelis during its October 7 attack.
“Today we’re all Israelis”
“Today we’re all Israelis, “ German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said during her visit.
Netanyahu told Von der Leyen “If Hamas could have its way, it would do to us exactly what the Nazis did to the Jews, they would kill every last one of us, they would mutilate our bodies, they would behead us and that’s what they did.”
“Therefore, it’s important to understand that Hamas perpetrated the worst war crimes since World War II.
“Hamas is ISIS in some respects. As President [Joe] Biden said, they’re worse than ISIS. And so they have to be treated the way ISIS was treated. The international community, banded together, to eradicate this horrible scourge,” he said.
“And I appreciate the fact that the international community and Europe is standing behind Israel so that we can eradicate this scourge.
Austin assured Netanyahu that the US had Israel’s back. “As you know, I was the guy that initially put the ISIS campaign together. And I know a lot about ISIS, and this is worse than what I saw with ISIS. We do stand with you, Mr. Prime Minister.”
Hanegbi told reporters that Israel intended to eliminate Hamas as a military and governmental force in Gaza.
The government is determined that Hamas can no longer pose a threat to Israel, he said. It would not be possible for any Israelis to live in southern Israel if they thought that this could happen again, he said.
Hanegbi appears to confirm that the number of those taken hostage could be upwards of 150 and said there is no negotiating with Hamas for the hostages nor will there be. “How can you negotiate with someone you are trying to wipe off the map?”
Still, he said, there was diplomatic activity on the issue, such as with Qatar.
Hanegbi said that right now, they are still trying to get the basic data points on our own people: “Where are the kids? The sons, daughters, parents? That is what we plan to find out when we go in and fight.” He noted that all the while, Hamas is engaging in psychological warfare, which Israel is used to.
Biden spoke with families of the American hostages over the weekend and Netanyahu is expected to speak soon with families of the Israeli hostages.
The international community continued to show solidarity for the Jewish state, but increasingly turned its focus to the fate of Palestinians in Gaza in danger both from the Israeli aerial bombings and Israel’s decision to cut electricity, fuel, water and food shipments to Gaza.
Earlier on Saturday, Baerbock said Berlin was discussing with the United Nations and other partners how to deploy humanitarian aid to Gaza via the Rafah crossing with Egypt, and Berlin is working with Egypt and Israel to find solutions for German citizens stranded there.
Baerbock, who arrived on Saturday morning in Cairo for discussion with her Turkish and Egyptian counterparts, said “the fight against Hamas must be carried out with the greatest possible consideration for the humanitarian situation … This is a huge dilemma that is difficult to resolve,” she said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin cautioned Israel on Friday against laying siege to Gaza in the same way that Nazi Germany besieged Leningrad, saying a ground offensive there would lead to an “absolutely unacceptable” number of civilian casualties.
Putin said Israel had been subjected to “an attack unprecedented in its cruelty” by Hamas militants, but was responding with cruel methods of its own.
He said there had been calls even in the United States for a blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on a par with “the siege of Leningrad during World War Two.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled through the region over the weekend, meeting with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan in Riyadh and Qatari Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Doha.
He met with Bahraini Crown Prince-Prime Minister Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa in Manama. In Jordan, he spoke with King Abdullah and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, following his visit to Israel on Thursday.
Farhan told Blinken on Saturday that the priority for Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia was to stop any further harm to civilians, particularly in Gaza.
“The humanitarian situation in Gaza is very, very difficult, and we need to work together to make sure that access to humanitarian relief and humanitarian goods is allowed. This is something that is critical and is of course enshrined in international law.”
“A concerted effort” must be made “to end this constant return to violence, it will always be the civilians that suffer first and always be civilians on both sides that end up paying the price.”
“I hope that we can find a way to deescalate the current situation, and then hopefully move forward to a more permanent solution,” he said.
Blinken said that “no country can or should be expected to tolerate what Israel has just been on the receiving end of, which is an attack that almost defies description and words, in which more than 1,300 of its people were slaughtered along with the nationals of more than 30 other countries, by Hamas.”
He reiterated what he had said in Israel, that “Hamas is not representative of the Palestinian people or their legitimate aspirations for the future. Hamas is a terrorist group. Its only agenda is to destroy the state of Israel and to murder Jews. And it’s important that the entire world see it as such. This is, I think, an important moment for moral clarity when it comes to Hamas.’
“It is vitally important that all of us look out for civilians. And we’re working together to do exactly that, in particular working on establishing safe areas in Gaza, working on establishing corridors so that humanitarian assistance can reach people who need it,” Blinken said.
“None of us want to see suffering by civilians on any side, whether it’s in Israel, whether it’s in Gaza, whether it’s anywhere else. And we’re working together to do our best to protect them,’” Blinken said.
“It’s vitally important – and I know that our countries agree – that we work together to make sure that, to the best of our ability, this conflict does not spread to other places and other fronts. And so I look forward to discussing that,” Blinken said.
Al-Thani said, “Qatar has sought to deescalate the situation towards achieving a complete cessation of hostilities, stop the bloodshed, and spare the region from the risk of slipping into an expansion of violence. The people of this region are exhausted by ongoing wars and conflicts, and suffer the consequences of such events.”
Reuters and Maayan Hoffman contributed to this report.
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