‘All of this is just an introduction, just a prelude, to the main intense operation,’ Netanyahu says
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted Monday that his army destroyed 50 high-rise residential buildings in Gaza City in two days, vowing further demolitions and forced displacement.
“In the past two days, 50 of these towers have fallen. The air force brought them down,” Netanyahu said in a video statement.
“Now all of this is just an introduction, just a prelude, to the main intense operation — a ground maneuver of our forces, who are now organizing and gathering in Gaza City.”
Netanyahu pledged to proceed with forced displacement plans. “This is just the prelude to the main powerful operation, so I tell Gaza residents: you have been warned, get out of there.”
The Palestinian resistance group Hamas denounced Netanyahu’s boasting as “one of the ugliest forms of sadism and criminality” in full view of the world.
On Friday, the Israeli army began to bomb multi-story buildings sheltering hundreds of displaced civilians in Gaza City, as Tel Aviv pressed ahead with a plan to occupy the entire city.
Israel has killed more than 64,500 Palestinians in a brutal offensive in Gaza since October 2023. The military campaign has devastated the enclave and pushed the entire population into famine.
Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
