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Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed on Wednesday that Hamas militants beheaded soldiers and raped women in their attack on Israel. According to an Associated Press report, he alleged that the attackers engaged in atrocities, shot people in the head, burnt them alive, raped women and beheaded soldiers.
In a late-night televised address, Netanyahu detailed some of the atrocities that took place during the Hamas attack on Israel. He said boys and girls were shot in the head and that people had been burned alive, news agency PTI reported.
In a stern warning, Netanyahu vowed to “crush and destroy” Hamas. “Every Hamas member is a dead man,” he said in a televised address.
Even US President Joe Biden called the attacks by Hamas a “campaign of pure cruelty” and said, “I never really thought that I would see and have confirmed pictures of terrorists beheading children.” He said this while addressing Jewish community leaders at a roundtable in the White House.
These allegations by Biden and Netanyahu could not be independently confirmed, and authorities did not immediately offer further details, the report said.
The statement by the two leaders came as at least 1,200 Israelis were killed in the attack, which set off a fierce Israeli response in the Gaza Strip. According to reports, over 900 people have been killed in Israel’s airstrikes in Gaza. The war has already claimed at least 2,300 lives on both sides, news agency Associated Press reported on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, the Israeli Prime Minister joined with a top political rival to create a war-time Cabinet overseeing the fight to avenge a stunning weekend attack by Hamas militants. The Cabinet will focus only on issues of war and will be led by Netanyahu; Benny Gantz, a senior opposition figure and former defence minister; and current Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
The new Cabinet establishes a degree of unity after years of bitterly divisive politics, and as the Israeli military appears increasingly likely to launch a ground offensive into Gaza.
However, Israel’s political divisions remain. The country’s chief opposition leader, Yair Lapid, was invited to join the Cabinet but did not immediately respond to the offer. It appeared that the rest of Netanyahu’s existing government partners, a collection of far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties, would remain in place to handle non-war issues.
Political pressure on Israeli PM
The Israeli government is under intense public pressure to topple Hamas after its militants stormed through a border fence Saturday and massacred hundreds of Israelis in their homes, on the streets and at an outdoor music festival.
Militants in Gaza are holding an estimated 150 people taken hostage from Israel — soldiers, men, women, children and older adults — and they have fired thousands of rockets into Israel over the past five days.
The Israeli military said more than 1,200 people, including 189 soldiers, have been killed in Israel, a staggering toll unseen since the 1973 war with Egypt and Syria that lasted weeks. In Gaza, 1,100 people have been killed, according to authorities there. Thousands have been wounded on both sides.
Israel says roughly 1,500 Hamas militants were killed inside Israeli territory, and that hundreds of the dead inside Gaza are Hamas members.