Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel remains “as committed as ever” to the war with Hamas, as he addressed the nation on Saturday after it emerged that Israeli hostages were mistakenly shot dead by their own military in the Gaza Strip.
The hostages were killed in the Gaza City area of Shijaiyah, where troops have been engaged in fierce fighting with Hamas in recent days.
One of the hostages was waving a makeshift white flag and another called for help in Hebrew when they were shot dead by Israeli soldiers in Gaza who “mistook them for militants”, a military official said.
The killings “broke my heart, broke the entire nation’s heart”, Mr Netanyahu said, while adding that the incident will not change Israel’s military campaign which has claimed thousands of lives.
“We are as committed as ever to continue until the end, until we dismantle Hamas, until we return all our hostages,” the Israeli prime minister said.
Mr Netanyahu called the mistaken deaths an “unbearable tragedy” and vowed to continue “with a supreme effort to return all the hostages home safely”.
Mr Netanyahu repeated his view on Saturday that Israel must take control of security matters in a demilitarised Gaza, and that the existence of a Palestinian state would pose a threat to Israel. "I am proud to have prevented the establishment of a Palestinian state," he said.
The Israeli prime minister and military leaders have vowed to continue the war with Hamas until “complete victory”, which Mr Netanyahu said will take time. He added that Hamas was seeking a withdrawl of Israeli troops from Gaza and an end to the fighting.
“The minute we capitulate to that, Hamas wins. And we are obligated to eliminate [Hamas] and to get all the hostages back,” he said in a joint presser at the defence ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv, reported The Times of Israel.
