Israeli president says citizens afraid, distrust peace efforts
Herzog maintains nation is fighting for free world
Israel’s president dismissed the global outcry for peace in Gaza on Thursday, saying Israelis have lost trust in the peace process “because they see that terror is glorified” by neighboring countries.
President Isaac Herzog, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, said Israelis are consumed by concerns that they will be attacked from the north, south or east.
“If you ask an average Israeli now about his mental state, nobody in his right mind is willing right now to think about what will be the solution of the peace agreements,” Herzog said. “Everybody wants to know, can we be promised real safety in the future?”
Most governments agree that lasting Israeli security will require recognition of a Palestinian state. Saudi Arabia announced this week it was willing to normalize relations with Israel in exchange for a pathway toward Palestinian statehood.
Israel, unwilling to cede control of security in Gaza and the West Bank, has rejected such overtures. Herzog said Israel’s destructive effort to crush Hamas should be supported globally.
“We are fighting a war for the entire universe, for the free world,” Herzog said. “If Israel was not there, Europe will be next because these barbaric jihadists want to get all of us out of the region and wants to get Europe out of its place as well. And the United States is next.”
U.S. warplanes conducted strikes Thursday on two anti-ship missiles in Yemen that had been aimed into Red Sea shipping lanes, the Pentagon said after the fifth such attack by the U.S. and its allies against Iranian-backed Houthi militants in a week.
Commanders determined the missiles posed an “imminent threat to merchant vessels and U.S. Navy ships in the region,” according to a statement from Central Command.
The Israeli military on Thursday said it found and destroyed a “major site” of the Hamas manufacturing industry in the center of Gaza that included a network of tunnels and factories used to make weapons and rockets.
Farther south, the military continued to strike targets in areas of the besieged territory where it has told civilians to seek refuge. An Israeli airstrike on a home killed 16 people, half of them children, in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, medics said early Thursday.
There was, meanwhile, no word on whether medicines that entered the territory Wednesday as part of a deal brokered by France and Qatar had been distributed to dozens hostages with chronic illnesses who are being held by Hamas.
Internet and mobile services in Gaza had been down for five days by Thursday, the longest of several outages during the war, according to internet access advocacy group NetBlocks.
In the West Bank’s Tulkarem refugee camp on Wednesday, eight Palestinian gunmen were killed in a “counter-terror operation,” according to the Israeli military. Dozens of hidden explosives were found and 15 wanted Palestinians were arrested, the military said.
The extended family and supporters of Kfir Bibas gathered Thursday in Tel Aviv to mark his first birthday.
Hamas said in November that Kfir and his family were dead, but Israeli authorities have not confirmed the claim and the family clings to hope.
Kfir, his brother Ariel, 4, and parents, Shiri and Yarden, were abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7 as the Hamasled rampage into Israel was unfolding.
Contributing: Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY; The Associated Press