by Israel’s political and military leaders marked 100 days of war against Hamas in Gaza over the weekend by vowing to continue to victory, even as they awaited a decision from the world’s highest court on a possible injunction against the devastating Israeli military offensive.
According to Israeli authorities, some 1,200 people were killed during the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, most of them civilians. Israel’s retaliatory war against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, according to Gaza health officials.
Warning of a protracted conflict, the Israeli statements exposed a growing dissonance between domestic perceptions about the timing and goals of the war and growing international impatience with a deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
“We will continue the war until the end, until complete victory, until we achieve all our objectives,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared in a televised news conference Saturday night, stating that “eliminate Hamas, return all our hostages and ensuring that Gaza will never again constitute a threat to Israel” were the objectives.
“No one will stop us, not The Hague, not the axis of evil, not anyone else,” he added defiantly, referring to the UN’s highest court, where Israel is being accused by South Africa of committing genocide against the Palestinians. in Gaza.
The court’s judges heard two days of hearings last week and will now decide whether to ask Israel to take interim measures, such as ceasing fighting, while it assesses the merit of the genocide charge. No date has been set for the announcement of that decision, and in any case the court has few means to enforce its rulings.
Netanyahu also at the same time invoked Iran and its proxies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, whose military actions in solidarity with Hamas have raised the specter of a broader conflict.
Acknowledging that dismantling Hamas in Gaza “will take time,” Netanyahu appeared as focused on boosting domestic morale as countering international criticism of the war.
Addressing skeptics who have called the Israeli government’s goal of destroying Hamas, the militant group that has controlled Gaza for 16 years, unrealistic, he said: “It is possible, it is necessary and we will do it.”
As the death toll in Gaza rises, international calls for a ceasefire are growing. Most of Gaza’s population of 2.2 million is internally displaced and the United Nations has warned that half the population is at risk of starvation.
“The mass death, destruction, displacement, hunger, loss and pain of the last 100 days are staining our shared humanity,” said Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the UN agency responsible for Palestinian refugees. said in a statement.
In a televised statement Saturday night, Israel’s army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, said Israel was engaged in “an unprecedented just war.” He said military plans had been approved to continue fighting and increase pressure on Hamas, which would lead to the group’s dismantling and the return of hostages who were taken in the October 7 attack on Israel.
“These objectives are complex to achieve and will take a long time,” he said, urging patience.
Of the 240 people kidnapped in Gaza on October 7, more than 130 remain in the enclave, according to Israeli officials, although not all are believed to be alive.
A Hamas spokesman in Beirut, Osama Hamdan, said at a news conference on Saturday that Hamas was providing “care for civilian prisoners in Gaza” and that the only danger to their lives came from “Netanyahu and his army.”
In Israel, public concern about the hostages has increased with each passing day.
On Sunday, a work day in Israel, universities, numerous companies, city councils and public organizations held a 100-minute work stoppage in solidarity with the hostages.
Tens of thousands of Israelis also attended a rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday night in support of the hostages and their families. Dozens of protesters blocked the main intercity highway, demanding that the government ensure the immediate release of the remaining captives.
“We are deeply concerned that decision makers are not prioritizing the hostages, to bring them home alive and not in boxes,” said Jonathan Dekel-Chen, whose son Sagui, 35, a U.S. citizen, was taken hostage on October 7.
Hwaida Saad, Ameera Haroudaand Roni Caryn Rabin contributed reports.
