Israel reiterated its intention Thursday to enter the town of Rafah in Gaza to destroy the remaining battalions of Hamas, promising to achieve “total victory” when it did so.
The Biden administration and Israel have been at odds over whether Israel should enter Rafah, with Israeli officials reportedly arguing with White House officials during a Zoom meeting on the topic earlier this week.
In a press briefing, Breitbart News asked Israeli government spokesperson Raquela Karamson: “Is the humanitarian cost of the delay greater than the humanitarian cost would have been if Israel had entered Rafah right away and ended the war with victory?
While declining to answer specifically, Karamson said that Israel’s entry into Rafah “will be the completion of our war against Hamas,” and that Israel would do so “to destroy the remaining battalions” of the terror organization.
She quoted war cabinet member Benny Gantz — an opposition figure who recently demanded new elections — as saying that one could not put out 80% of a fire and leave 20% of it still burning.
“When it is time to enter Rafah, we will do so, and we will achieve total victory there,” she said.
Karamson spoke as Israel called up reservists from its air defense units, and canceled leave for combat troops, as it anticipated a response from Iran after Israel killed two Iranian generals in an airstrike in Damascus, Syria, earlier in the week.
She also reiterated Israel’s regret at the accidental killing of seven World Central Kitchen employees earlier in the week, noting that an investigation by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) thus far had determined that the airstrike had been the result of a misidentification at night and in complex conditions.
On Tuesday, President Joe Biden issued a statement in which he had said: “Israel has not done enough to protect aid workers trying to deliver desperately needed help to civilians. … Israel has also not done enough to protect civilians.” He did not mention Hamas’s role in stealing aid or using civilians as human shields.
Asked by Breitbart News to respond, Karamson said: “I think we’ve seen over the course of this war, how the IDF has gone above and beyond to create humanitarian corridors, to move residents out of harm’s way.
“We’ve certainly done everything we can, [and] continue to do everything we can” to protect aid and Palestinian civilians, she said.
Karamson also addressed the latest protests against the Israeli government in Jerusalem, and calls for new elections by opposition parties.
Asked whether Israel believed the Biden administration was encouraging a “color revolution” by backing protests and calls for new elections, Karamson said: “Israel is a democracy. .. If anyone wishes to protest anything at all, they have the right to do so, peacefully. I think last year we saw that — for six months, people protested peacefully in the streets.
“Israel is a democracy, the U.S. is a democracy, and protesting is a right of our citizens.”
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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