Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Tuesday for broad international support in the country’s war against Gaza-based militants Hamas, which carried out the deadliest attack in Israel’s 75-year history.
“The world must stand united behind Israel to defeat Hamas,” Netanyahu said alongside visiting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
The German leader is one of a slew of top politicians to have visited Israel since the Hamas attack on October 7 killed more than 1,400 people. It triggered Israeli retaliatory strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza, where around 3,000 people have been killed ahead of an expected Israeli ground invasion.
“The savagery that we witnessed perpetrated by the Hamas murderers coming out of Gaza were the worst crimes committed against Jews since the Holocaust,” Netanyahu said, referring to the extermination of more than six million Jews by the Nazis.
Speaking in Tel Aviv, Scholz accused Hamas of wanting to “hold the citizens of Gaza as human shield” in the densely-populated Gaza Strip, where the militants have taken 199 hostages seized during their attack on southern Israel, according to Israel’s military.
“We want to protect civilians and avoid civilian casualties,” said the German chancellor.
Following his brief stop in Israel, Scholz is set to depart for Egypt to discuss the humanitarian crisis.
“The (German) federal government will continue its humanitarian efforts to alleviate the suffering of the civilian population,” he said.–AFP
