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JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The war against Palestinian Hamas in the Gaza Strip will likely last for many months due to the high goals Israel aims to achieve, Israel’s army chief of staff said on Tuesday.
“The war will last for many months and we will use different methods to ensure that our achievements last,” Herzi Halevi said in a televised statement on the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip.
“There is no magic solution, there is no shortcut to dismantling a terrorist organization, only a resolute and tenacious fight,” he added. “We will also reach the leadership of Hamas, whether it takes a week or whether it takes months.”
The Israeli government pledged to destroy Hamas after the attack on the Palestinian Islamist movement, which left around 1,200 dead on October 7 in the south of the Jewish state. The Israeli army then launched a vast air and ground offensive in the Gaza Strip which, according to the authorities of the Hamas-led enclave, has now killed nearly 21,000 Palestinians in two and a half months.
“We said from the very beginning that this would be a long war because it was right to set ambitious goals and we will live up to these ambitions, that’s why it will last a long time,” Herzi Halevi said.
Such a duration will allow the army to adapt its methods, he added.
“At the end of the day, will we be able to say that there is no enemy surrounding the State of Israel? I think it’s too ambitious but we will create a new security situation,” he said. -he declares.
(Written by Maayan Lubell; French version Bertrand Boucey, edited by Jean Terzian)
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