TEL AVIV (dpa-AFX) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Iran and its allies of deliberately trying to torpedo Israel’s rapprochement with the region’s Arab states. A month after the start of the war in Gaza, Netanyahu spoke to more than 1,000 foreign diplomats on Monday about a “broader war between civilization and barbarism.”
Netanyahu said: “Barbarism is led by an axis of terror.” Tehran is at the top and also includes the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah, the Islamist Hamas that rules in the Gaza Strip and the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Its goal is to send the Middle East and the world “back to the dark ages,” Netanyahu said. “They want to torpedo and derail any progress towards peace and the progress and promise we had in our would-be peace treaties with our Arab neighbors.”
Before October 7, Israel and Saudi Arabia were on track for a US-brokered rapprochement. However, the massacre carried out by Hamas in Israel and the subsequent massive counterattacks in Gaza disrupted these efforts.
In 2020, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) became the first Gulf states to sign an agreement to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. Until then, only the neighboring countries of Egypt and Jordan maintained diplomatic relations with Israel. Jordan recalled its ambassador in response to the war in Gaza.
Netanyahu called on the international community to support Israel in the fight against Hamas. “If the Middle East falls into the hands of the Axis of Terror, Europe will be next,” he warned. After Israel’s victory against Hamas, “a truly promising future and hope will be offered to the people of Gaza and all the peoples of the Middle East”.
The number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip has risen to more than 10,000 since the war began a month ago, according to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health./le/DP/ngu