Following the Hamas attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to kill all members of the Palestinian radical Islamic organization. “Hamas, this is the Islamic State, and we will crush it and destroy it as the world destroyed the Islamic State,” Netanyahu said yesterday in his first speech to members of the new war cabinet. Every “Hamas member is a dead man,” he said.
Defense Minister Joav Galant agreed with the head of government that Israel would “wipe Hamas off the face of the earth.” Hamas launched a major attack on Israel on Saturday, prompting the Israeli army to mobilize tens of thousands of soldiers and place the Gaza Strip under constant fire.
According to preliminary information, attackers killed more than 1,200 people in Israel and more than 1,000 deaths were reported in the Gaza Strip. According to the Israeli army, 150 people were kidnapped by Hamas fighters and taken to the Gaza Strip.
After the most serious attack on Israel since its founding 75 years ago, Netanyahu and opposition politician Benni Ganz agreed on a joint “emergency government and war cabinet”, as they announced in a joint statement. The three-person war cabinet is said to include Netanyahu, Ganz and Gallant.