Israel is preparing to change the situation on its border with Lebanon but hopes there will be no need to do so, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday, referring to the army's ongoing confrontations with the Lebanese Hezbollah group.
Speaking to Israel's Channel 14 about the possibility of a full-blown war with Hezbollah, Netanyahu said if necessary, “we will meet this challenge too. We can fight on several fronts. We are prepared for this.”
Regarding the war in Gaza, he said the phase of intense fighting is nearing an end, but the war will not end until Hamas no longer controls the enclave.
Netanyahu said that Tel Aviv wants to establish “local clans” to rule the Gaza Strip.
He also said that re-establishing Israeli settlements in Gaza is “not realistic” and it would not serve the aims of the war.
Israel, flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7 attack last year by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas.
More than 37,500 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children, and nearly 86,000 others injured, according to local health authorities.
More than eight months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.
Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered it to immediately halt its operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.
