Israel Netanyahu says 3rd phase of Gaza war to last 6 months

Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, told his Cabinet ministers that what he called the third phase of the Gaza war will take six months, local media reported on Tuesday, Anadolu Agency reports.

“Netanyahu said that it will take six months for the army to finish the third phase of the war, which has already begun in the northern Gaza Strip,” said Israeli public broadcaster, KAN.

The Israeli premier said that the first phase of aerial bombardment of the Gaza Strip took three weeks.

“And as we said that the second part of the massive manoeuvre would last three months, and so it was, this is how we say that the third part of establishing control will last six months,” he was quoted as saying by KAN.

Israel has mounted a deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip since a 7 October cross-border attack by Hamas which Tel Aviv says killed 1,200 people.

However, since then, it has been revealed by Haaretz that helicopters and tanks of the Israeli army had, in fact, killed many of the 1,139 soldiers and civilians claimed by Israel to have been killed by the Palestinian Resistance.

At least 25,490 Palestinians have since been killed by the Israeli attacks, mostly women and children, and 63,354 injured, according to Palestinian health authorities.

The Israeli onslaught has left 85 per cent of Gaza’s population internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60 per cent of the enclave’s infrastructure was damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

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