Israelis say Hamas must be crushed despite Gaza casualties, U.N. rebuke

Despite the request for a ceasefire from the United Nations General Assembly, the mounting list of soldier deaths, and a spiraling Palestinian death toll in Gaza, Israeli residents stated on Wednesday that the Israeli army should not back off from its continuous operation to smash Hamas.

On Tuesday, Israel’s military saw one of the worst days in the Gaza war, which has been going on for two months. A colonel was among the ten troops who were killed, raising the total number of casualties to 115. This is almost twice as many as the number of soldiers who were killed during the conflict in the coastal enclave nine years ago.

The “indiscriminate” bombardment of Gazan civilians, according to Vice President Joe Biden of the United States, is causing Israel to lose international support. Even though a significant portion of the enclave has been destroyed, the situation is severe, and more than 18,500 Palestinians have been murdered as a result of the Israeli army’s air and ground assault.

However, six Israelis who spoke to Reuters on Wednesday stated that now was not the time to back down, even though the support was shown in Tuesday’s United Nations resolution. Recent polls have shown that most people will continue to support the war despite the mounting expenses.

A political scientist named Tamar Hermann stated that the slaughter of over 1,200 people, the majority of whom were civilians, by Hamas on October 7 rekindled a dread that Israel had previously experienced when Arabs carried out a surprise attack in 1973. This concern was that Israel’s neighbors and adversaries might completely eradicate the Jewish country.

“The sense of the people is that this is a threat to the very existence of Israel,” said Hermann, who works for the Israel Democracy Institute, which is responsible for conducting frequent opinion surveys on the conflict. According to her, people were ready for an increase in the number of deaths among soldiers.

Ben Zion Levinger, a retired Israeli official, made the statement in Jerusalem that Israel’s adversaries would see any lull in the pursuit of Hamas as a show of weakness on their part.

Should we fail to see this conflict through to its conclusion, then tomorrow morning, we will be engaged in fights not just in the north and east but also in the south and maybe even Iran. As a result, we do not have any other options,” said Levinger, a former employee in the information technology field.

Despite the “terrible” cost, the objective of the military operation was to wreck Hamas infrastructure in Gaza, according to Yuli Edelstein, the chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, who stated this objective in an interview.

According to Hamas, the soldiers who were killed on Tuesday demonstrated that Israel will never be able to fulfill its military aims. “The longer you stay there, the greater the bill of your deaths and losses will be, and you will emerge from it carrying the tail of disappointment and loss, God willing.”

“COLLATERAL DAMAGE” After a week-long break in hostilities in November, more than three-quarters of Israelis responded in a poll by the Israel Democracy Institute that the offensive should continue without any modifications to lessen the number of Palestinian civilian casualties or the rise in international pressure.

The Israeli media’s coverage of the conflict focuses more on worldwide coverage than it does on the civilian casualties that have occurred in Gaza. According to Hermann, although the opinions of Israelis on Palestinian casualties varied according to their political leanings, some individuals believed that the killings were a reasonable price to pay for the sake of future security.

“There is a sense of first revenge, mainly on the right, and on the left and the center, they see it as, I would say, secondary to the achievements of the war. It is being perceived as collateral damage.”

The results of a survey that Tel Aviv University carried out in late October among 609 respondents revealed that just 10 percent of Israelis believed that the army was employing an excessive amount of weaponry. The margin of error for this survey was 4.2%.

In an interview, Adam Saville, a resident of Jerusalem who works at a not-for-profit academic institution, stated that Israel was doing all in its power to prevent civilian fatalities.

It’s a terrible thing. He expressed his dismay at the high number of civilians who have been killed or injured. “But this is war, and that’s what happens in war.”

“We didn’t start this.”

HOSTAGES
One of the objectives of Israel’s assault is to return more than 115 captives who the terrorists captured and brought to Gaza, in addition to apprehending or killing the Hamas commanders who planned the rampage through Kibbutzim and a party in Israel on October 7.

Two remains were found this week, according to Israel, and the country claims that at least 19 of the other captives have passed away. During the week-long ceasefire that took place in November, around one hundred of the hostages were freed.

Israel is displaying portraits of the captives along with the message “bring them home” on walls and bus stations, as well as projecting these portraits on public buildings around the country.

It has been demonstrated that Israelis are prepared to make sacrifices in the past to rescue hostages or spare the lives of their forces, but the attack that occurred on OctobeOctober 7h was the single most deadly occurrence in Israel’s history of 75 years, has hardened sentiments.

Considering the precarious nature of the situation, it should come as no surprise that Israelis are uncertain about what a solution that would be considered long-term might look like. On the other hand, according to a study conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute, more than forty percent of Israeli residents believe that the nation ought to work for the establishment of a Palestinian state after the conflict.

Almost sixty percent of Israelis, including forty percent of Arab Israelis, identified the destruction of Hamas in any manner possible as the essential aim of the conflict, according to a survey that was conducted by Tel Aviv University in late October among six hundred and ninety-nine respondents, with a margin of error of four and a half percent.

A third of those polled stated that the primary objective was to get the hostages back home.

“Right now, we didn’t achieve either the first or the second,” Hermann commented. “Most people are ready to continue until the point where at least one of the major aims is achieved.”

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, stated that the Israeli military will continue to battle.

I say this not just in the face of incredible suffering but also in the face of demands from the world community. Over the radio, he assured the forces stationed in Gaza that “nothing will stop us.”