No-one can halt Israel’s war to crush Hamas, says Netanyahu

Mr Netanyahu spoke after the International Court of Justice at The Hague held two days of hearings on South Africa’s allegations that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians, a charge Israel has rejected as libellous and hypocritical.

South Africa had asked the court to order Israel to halt its air and ground offensive in an interim step.

Referring to Iran and its allied militias, Mr Netanyahu said in televised remarks on Saturday evening: “No-one will stop us, not The Hague, not the axis of evil, and not anyone else.”

The case before the international court is expected to go on for years, but a ruling on interim steps could come within weeks. Court rulings are binding, but difficult to enforce.

Mr Netanyahu made clear that Israel would ignore orders to halt the fighting, potentially deepening its isolation.

Israel has been under growing international pressure to end the war, which has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians in Gaza and led to widespread suffering in the besieged enclave, but has so far been shielded by US diplomatic and military support.

Israel argues that ending the war means victory for Hamas, the Islamic militant group that has ruled Gaza since 2007 and is bent on Israel’s destruction.

The war was triggered by an attack on October 7 in which Hamas and other militants killed some 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians.

About 250 more were taken hostage, and while some have been released or confirmed dead, more than half are believed to still be in captivity. Sunday marks 100 days of fighting.

Fears of a wider conflict have been palpable since the start of the war. New fronts quickly opened, with Iranian-backed groups – Houthi rebels in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria – carrying out a range of attacks.

From the start, the US increased its military presence in the region to deter an escalation.

Following a Houthi campaign of drone and missile attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea, the US and UK launched multiple airstrikes against the rebels on Friday, and the US hit another site on Saturday.

This week, the international court heard arguments on South Africa’s complaint against Israel. South Africa cited the soaring death toll and hardships among Gaza civilians, along with inflammatory comments from Israeli leaders, presented as proof of what it called genocidal intent.

In counter-arguments on Friday, Israel asked for the case to be dismissed as meritless. Israel’s defence argued that the country has the right to fight back against a ruthless enemy, that South Africa had barely mentioned Hamas, and that it ignored what Israel considers attempts to mitigate civilian harm.

Mr Netanyahu and his army chief, Herzl Halevi, said they have no immediate plans to allow the return of displaced Palestinians to northern Gaza, the initial focus of Israel’s offensive.

Fighting in the northern half has been scaled back, with forces now focusing on the southern city of Khan Younis, though combat continues in parts of the north.

Mr Netanyahu said the issue had been raised by US secretary of state Antony Blinken during his visit earlier this week. The Israeli leader said he told Mr Blinken that “we will not return residents (to their homes) when there is fighting”.

At the same time, Mr Netanyahu said Israel would eventually need to close what he said were breaches along Gaza’s border with Egypt.

Over the years of an Israeli-Egyptian blockade, smuggling tunnels under Egypt-Gaza border had constituted a major supply line for Gaza.

However, the border area, particularly the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, is packed with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who had fled northern Gaza, and their presence would complicate any plans to widen Israel’s ground offensive.

“We will not end the war until we close this breach,” Mr Netanyahu said, adding that his government has not yet decided how to do that.

In Gaza, the health ministry said on Saturday that 135 Palestinians had been killed in the last 24 hours, bringing the overall toll of the war to 23,843.

The count does not differentiate between combatants and civilians, but the ministry has said about two thirds of the dead are women and children. The ministry said the total number of war-wounded surpassed 60,000.

Following an Israeli air strike before dawn on Saturday, video provided by Gaza’s civil defence department showed rescue workers searching through the twisted rubble of a building in Gaza City by torch.

Footage showed them carrying a young girl wrapped in blankets with injuries to her face, and at least two other children who appeared dead.

The attack on the home in the Daraj area killed at least 20 people, according to officials.

Another strike late on Friday near the southern city of Rafah on the Egyptian border killed at least 13 people, including two children. The bodies of those killed, primarily from a family displaced from central Gaza, were taken to the city’s Abu Youssef al-Najjar hospital where they were seen by an Associated Press reporter.

The Palestinian telecommunications company Jawwal said two of its employees were killed on Saturday as they tried to repair the network in Khan Younis. They company said the two were hit by shelling. Jawwal has lost 13 employees since the start of the war.

Israel has argued that Hamas is responsible for the high civilian casualties, saying its fighters make use of civilian buildings and launch attacks from densely populated urban areas.

Since the start of Israel’s ground operation in late October, 187 Israeli soldiers have been killed and another 1,099 injured in Gaza, according to the military.

More than 85% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has been displaced as a result of Israel’s air and ground offensive, and vast swathes of the territory have been levelled.

Only 15 of the territory’s 36 hospitals are still partially functional, according to the UN, amid severe shortages of food, clean water and fuel.