PM blasts international community amid pressure over war: ‘Did you already forget Oct. 7?’

Speaking at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasts those “in the international community who are trying to stop the war now, before all its goals are achieved.”

Netanyahu’s Hebrew-language comments are likely a reference to calls last week for elections in Israel from US Senator Chuck Schumer, and growing criticism from the Biden White House over Netanyahu’s conduct of the war.

The prime minister says that those who wants to stop the war do so “by making false accusations against the IDF, against the Israeli government and against the prime minister of Israel. They do this by trying to bring about elections now, in the midst of the war.”

Turning to Israel’s “friends in the international community,” Netanyahu asks pointedly: “Is your memory so short? Did you forget so quickly October 7, the most terrible massacre committed against Jews since the Holocaust? Are you so quickly ready to deny Israel the right to defend itself against the monsters of Hamas? Did you lose your moral conscience so quickly?”

He calls for international pressure to be put on Hamas and Iran, rather than Israel.

“No amount of international pressure will stop us from realizing all the goals of the war: eliminating Hamas, releasing all our hostages and ensuring that Gaza will no longer pose a threat against Israel,” insists Netanyahu.

“We must not give in to these pressures, and we will not give in to them,” Netanyahu stresses.

He also promises that the IDF will operate in Rafah, “carefully.”

“It will take a few weeks, and it will happen,” he says.

“Those who say that the operation in Rafah will not happen are the same ones who said that we will not enter Gaza, that we will not operate in Shifa, that we will not operate in Khan Younis and that we will not resume fighting after the [weeklong November] ceasefire,” Netanyahu says.