Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Sunday rejected international pressure to halt his military campaign in Gaza and, speaking at a Holocaust memorial, affirmed Israel’s right to fight its “genocidal enemies.”
Nearly seven months into the war, Netanyahu has remained steadfast in his goal of destroying Hamas. This, and Netanyahu’s insistence on sending troops to Rafah, the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip, has complicated efforts to end the fighting and raised concerns about the future of hostages held by Hamas.
But Netanyahu has remained defiant.
On Sunday he spoke at Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, to mark national Holocaust remembrance day. The Hamas attack of October 7, she said, was not a “Holocaust,” not because Hamas did not intend to destroy Israel but because of its inability to do so. About 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 taken hostage that day, Israeli authorities say. Hamas’s intention, Netanyahu said, was the same as that of the Nazis.
In his speech, which lasted about 15 minutes and was largely in Hebrew, Netanyahu rejected accusations that Israel was committing genocide in the Gaza Strip. Since the start of the war, Gaza authorities say Israeli troops have killed more than 34,000 people, many of them women and children, although the statistics do not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Netanyahu said Israel’s military is doing everything it can to avoid harming civilians and has allowed aid to reach Gaza to avoid a humanitarian crisis. A United Nations official recently said that parts of Gaza are experiencing a “full-blown famine.”
Netanyahu intended to say a few words in English addressed to the international community. He invoked the Holocaust in asserting Israel’s right to defend itself, with or without international support.
“If Israel is forced to remain alone, Israel will be alone,” he said. “But we know we are not alone because countless decent people around the world support our just cause. And I tell you that we will defeat our genocidal enemies. It will never be again now!
On Monday morning, after his speech, the Israeli military gave its strongest signal yet that it was going to invade Rafah and called on tens of thousands of Gazans to evacuate the city.