Netanyahu rejects calls for truce

FE Team | Published: November 12, 2023 21:24:39

GAZA STRIP, Nov 12 (AP/Reuters/BBC): Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back Saturday against growing international calls for a cease-fire, saying Israel's battle to crush Gaza's ruling Hamas militants will continue with "full force."
A cease-fire would be possible only if all 239 hostages held by militants in Gaza are released, Netanyahu said in a televised address.
The Israeli leader also insisted that after the war, now entering its sixth week, Gaza would be demilitarized and Israel would retain security control there. Asked what he meant by security control, Netanyahu said Israeli forces must be able to enter Gaza freely to hunt down militants.
He also rejected the idea that the Palestinian Authority, which currently administers autonomous areas in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, would at some stage control Gaza. Both positions run counter to post-war scenarios floated by Israel's closest ally, the United States.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the U.S. opposes an Israeli reoccupation of Gaza and envisions a unified Palestinian government in both Gaza and the West Bank at some stage as a step toward Palestinian statehood.
For now, Netanyahu said, "the war against (Hamas) is advancing with full force, and it has one goal, to win. There is no alternative to victory."
Israel offers to evacuate babies
from main Gaza hospital
Israel's military said it was ready to evacuate babies from Gaza's largest hospital on Sunday, where Palestinian officials said two newborns died and dozens more were at risk after fuel ran out amid intense fighting in the area.
As the humanitarian situation worsened, Gaza's border authority said the Rafah crossing into Egypt would reopen on Sunday for foreign passport holders after closing on Friday.
Hamas said it had completely or partially destroyed more than 160 Israeli military targets in Gaza, including more than 25 vehicles in the past 48 hours. An Israeli military spokesperson said Hamas had lost control of northern Gaza.
At a news conference late on Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the deaths of five more Israeli soldiers in Gaza. The Israeli military said 46 had been killed since its ground operations there began.
Major French political parties join
anti-Semitism demonstration
Something unprecedented is happening this weekend in Paris, brought about by the war between Israel and Hamas and its spill-over in Europe. For the first time ever, a major demonstration attended by representatives of the major political parties will include the far right - but not the far left.
On Sunday afternoon thousands of people are expected to heed a call from the Speakers of the two houses of parliament to show their support for French "Republican" values and their rejection of antisemitism - this in the face of a steep rise in antisemitic actions since 7 October.
Among the first to announce their presence were Marine Le Pen, three-times presidential candidate for the National Rally (formerly the National Front), and the party's young president, Jordan Bardella.
Almost simultaneously came a rejoinder from their counterpart on the far left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, irascible leader of France Unbowed (LFI). His party would not be attending, he tweeted, because the march was a "rendezvous for unconditional supporters of the massacre [of Gazans]".
It is hard to overestimate the symbolic significance of this switch-over. For decades French politics erected a bulwark against the far right, whose views - not least on Jews - were deemed "anti-Republican". The old National Front under Marine's father Jean-Marie Le Pen was seen as beyond the pale, and it was shunned.
The far left meanwhile - the Communists, the Trotskyists and the new formations like Mr Mélenchon's LFI - were certainly attacked for their views, but they were never excluded. They were part of the broad political family, in a way that the Le Pen franchise clearly wasn't.
A few years ago, for a far-left party not to have been part of a march against antisemitism would have been unthinkable. For a far-right party to have been there instead would have been unconscionable.