Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that the date had been set for an Israeli military operation in the city of Rafah, near Gaza’s border with Egypt, to attack the last remaining Hamas battalions and destroy them.
Netanyahu spoke as Israeli negotiators were in Cairo, Egypt, in the hope of striking a deal with Hamas via Egyptian, Qatari, and American mediators to see some of the remaining 133 Israeli hostages released, some of whom are dead.
In a statement posted online, and translated and released by Israel’s Government Press Office, Netanyahu said:
“Today I received a detailed report on the talks in Cairo. We are working constantly to attain our objectives, first and foremost the release of all of our hostages and the achieving of total victory over Hamas. “This victory requires entering Rafah and eliminating the terrorist battalions there. This will happen; there is a date.”
קיבלתי היום דיווח מפורט על השיחות בקהיר, אנחנו פועלים כל הזמן להשגת מטרותינו ובראשן שחרור כל חטופינו והשגת ניצחון מוחלט על חמאס.
הניצחון הזה מחייב כניסה לרפיח וחיסול גדודי הטרור שם. זה יקרה – יש תאריך. pic.twitter.com/KOhStmGSGp
— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) April 8, 2024
The Biden administration has opposed an Israeli invasion of Rafah, claiming that there are other methods to achieve the goal of destroying Hamas — though the U.S. has not specified what those other methods are. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that the U.S. had not been told what the date of Israel’s planned operation will be.
There were conflicting reports from Cairo about the progress of talks, with some observers saying that progress was being made; others saying Hamas was refusing a deal; and others saying that many hostages may be dead already.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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