Israel can stop Hamas activities in Gaza only through a ground force operation, says former Prime Minister of the Jewish State Ehud Barak . In an interview with Deutsche Welle (the organization is included in the list of foreign agents by the Ministry of Justice), he noted that a diplomatic approach will not help here.
“The activities of the Islamist Hamas movement in Gaza cannot be stopped by air strikes, diplomacy, Israeli televised appeals or global support. This must be done by the ground forces,” Barak explained.
He added that the Hamas attack on Israel left no other options. Barak stressed that the Jewish state respects international law and will comply with it during a possible ground operation in Gaza.
On October 7, Hamas fired several thousand rockets into Israel and announced the start of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. Thousands of militants invaded Israeli territory, seizing dozens of military equipment and over a hundred hostages. Against this background, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu announced that the country was in a state of war.
The response operation of the Israel Defense Forces was called “Iron Swords”; one of its goals was the destruction of Hamas. The Israeli air force carried out strikes on hundreds of Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, and Israel’s National Security Council decided to cut off supplies of water, food, goods, electricity and fuel to the strip. On October 13, Israel informed the UN that 1.1 million Palestinians must evacuate to southern Gaza within 24 hours ahead of the ground operation in Gaza.
Earlier, the EU was called upon to oppose Israel’s attacks on Gaza.