Netanyahu suggests changing name of Gaza war to ‘War of Revival’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed changing the army’s name for the ongoing war against Hamas and Iran’s proxies to the “War of Revival,” telling ministers Monday that it better reflected the nature of the conflict.

The year-long conflict has hitherto been known officially by the name of the military campaign — “Swords of Iron.”

Netanyahu made the suggestion during a special cabinet meeting to mark the first anniversary of the start of the war on October 7, 2023, when Palestinian terror group Hamas led a devastating cross-border attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, while 251 were taken as hostages to the Gaza Strip.

“This is the war of our existence — the ‘War of Revival,'” the prime minister said at the meeting, according to a statement from his office. “This is what I would like to officially call the war.”

Minister Gideon Sa’ar and Social Equity Minister Amichai Chikli both objected to the suggestion, saying it sounded too similar to the Hebrew name for the 1948 War of Independence that followed the establishment of the State of Israel, the Ynet new site reported.

The day after the Hamas assault, the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah — which is, like Hamas, sponsored by Iran — began attacking along the northern border in solidarity with Hamas. The fighting in the north and the south has displaced tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes in border areas.

Opposition Leader MK Yair Lapid panned Netanyahu’s suggestion of a new name for the war.

“There will be no revival until all the abducted and displaced people return to their homes,” he wrote in a post to X. “You can change as many names as you want; you will not change the fact that on your watch the most terrible disaster since the establishment of the country happened to the people of Israel.

“This government is not the government of revival, it is the government of guilt.”

The name “Swords of Iron” was announced by the military on the day of the Hamas onslaught, shortly after Netanyahu’s declaration that Israel was at war.

In December the Kan public broadcaster reported that Netanyahu was looking at various alternative titles for the war including the “Genesis War,” “Gaza War,” and “Simhat Torah War.”

At the time, Netanyahu reportedly said that the name “Swords of Iron” was suitable for a limited operation, not a full-scale war.

According to Kan, Netanyahu favored “The Genesis War.” The holiday of Simhat Torah marks the end of the yearly cycle of Torah reading and the beginning of the reading of the Book of Genesis.

While military operations fought by Israel have often been given names such as Operation Guardian of the Walls in May 2021 or Operation Protective Edge in 2014, formally recognized wars are given more straightforward names, such as the Six Day War in 1967, the Yom Kippur War in 1973, and the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

The special cabinet meeting was held as the country marked a year since the Hamas attack. At the start of the gathering, Netanyahu lit a memorial candle and ministers stood for a moment of silence.

“We will end the war when we achieve all the goals we set,” the prime minister said. “Overthrowing the evil rule of Hamas, returning all our abductees home — both the dead and the living — thwarting any future threat from Gaza to Israel, and returning our residents in the south and north safely to their homes.

“We are changing the security reality in our region; for the sake of our children, for the sake of our future, to ensure that what happened on the 7th of October will not happen again. Never again,” he said, invoking the slogan used by survivors after the Holocaust.

The 3,000 terrorists who burst into the country last October 7 overran communities and army bases, slaughtering those they found. Gunmen rampaged murderously through southern areas committing numerous atrocities, slaying families in their homes, mutilating victims, and raping and executing women. At an outdoor music festival, terrorists massacred 364 people.

Israel responded with a military offensive to destroy Hamas in the Gaza Strip, ensure an attack like October 7 cannot be repeated, and save the hostages, of whom 97 remain in captivity.

Dispute over October 7 footage

At the cabinet meeting, ministers were shown a video prepared by the IDF and compiled from CCTV footage and clips that Hamas terrorists took, showing atrocities committed during the October 7 onslaught.

Hebrew media reports said the ministers watched a 20-minute compilation — some of which was footage of the massacre compiled by the IDF late last October and shown to many journalists, politicians, diplomats and other international figures since then, and some of which had been collected since the original compilation was made.

After the screening, Netanyahu voiced his opinion that the video should be made public, according to Hebrew media reports. An IDF representative was then said to have told ministers that the Attorney General’s Office had raised legal objections to the move.

When Netanyahu said that it should be made widely available, as it is a valuable advocacy tool on the international stage, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, who was at the meeting, reportedly said she would look into the matter.

Army Radio reported that Netanyahu banged on the table and demanded to know why this had not happened already, and insisted that he would not accept any legal impediment to the dissemination of the footage.

According to some reports, Baharav-Miara responded that she had not seen a request that the video be released. Other reports said she rejected any assertion that she was blocking the dissemination of the material, saying her office had had no involvement in the matter, and stormed out of the room.

Later, both the Attorney General’s Office and the IDF released statements saying there was no legal impediment to publishing the video.

“A false claim was made that the attorney general” is preventing the release of the video, her office said in a statement. “The claim is false.”

Families of victims have reportedly in the past objected to a broad release of the film.

No October 7 indictments

Earlier in the day, at 6.29 a.m., the exact moment last year Hamas unleashed thousands of rockets across the country and its terrorists began breaching the border from Gaza, the flag at the Prime Minister’s Office was lowered to half-staff.

Separately, a representative of the State Attorney’s Office told members of the Knesset Committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality that in the year since October 7, no indictments have been brought against members of Hamas’s elite Nukhba force who raped and murdered Israelis.

While investigations are ongoing, including by a team dedicated to sexual crimes, “I can’t tell you times and specific dates” when indictments would be filed, the representative stated, eliciting consternation in both coalition and opposition lawmakers.

“When a terrorist from Islamic Jihad said in March 2024 that he raped a woman in Nir Oz, there’s no indictment?” asked Likud lawmaker Keti Shitrit. “What else do you need to know to issue an indictment?”

“There are terrorists who admitted” to rape, chimed in committee chairwoman Pnina-Tamano Shata (National Unity), stating that “we want to know about the progress of the investigation. Time is important.”

The IDF has released multiple videos in which captured Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists confessed to murdering and raping people in interrogation.

In light of these confessions, as well as conversations with survivors of the October 7 attack, the United Nations’ special representative on sexual violence in conflict Pramila Patten published a report in March in which she said that there was evidence that Hamas had used sexual violence in its attack and was continuing to do so against hostages in Gaza.