Israel’s war against Hamas will last so long that boys still in school can expect to fight in Gaza, Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz has said.
“Fighting against Hamas will take time,” he said in a statement to the media.
“Boys who are now in middle school will still fight in the Gaza Strip.”
However, Mr Gantz said that for the time being, the group’s military capabilities had been destroyed.
“From a military point of view, Hamas is defeated,” he said.
“Its fighters are eliminated or in hiding” and its capabilities “crippled,” he added.
Hamas say seven members of Haniyeh family killed
A statement from Hamas has said that seven members of leader Ismail Haniyeh’s family were killed by an Israeli airstrike today – up from the six that had previously been reported.
An IDF statement confirmed that the Israeli air force had struck and killed Haniyeh’s sons Hazem, Amir and Mohammed.
This latest Hamas statement also says four of his grandchildren were killed in the same strike.
It said three granddaughters and one grandson had died, but did not provide ages.
Asked about the four grandchildren killed in the airstrike, the Israeli military said there was “no information on that right now”.
“This pure blood, these sacrifices and heroism, will be [the] fuel that… ignites resistance against the Zionist enemy, and fuels the resolve of the mujahideen on the ground until the occupation is defeated and eliminated,” the Hamas statement read.
‘You are next,’ far-right Israeli politician warns Hamas leader
A far-right Israeli politician has warned Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh that he is “next”, after his three sons and four grandchildren were killed in Israeli airstrikes.
Reacting to the news in a video shared online, Almog Cohen said: “Ismail Haniyeh, you are next in line”.
Mr Cohen serves as an equivalent to an MP in Israel (known as MK – or member of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament) representing the Otzma Yehudit far-right political party, which is also known as ‘Jewish Power’.
He briefly served on the Knesset’s foreign affairs and defence committee in 2022, before Itamar Ben-Gvir, a similarly outspoken far-right politician, removed him.
In January last year, Mr Cohen was suspended from X following his calls to “keep killing them” after an IDF raid in the Jenin refugee camp that led to the deaths of nine Palestinians.
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