Wounded soldiers from the war meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu and call for a decisive victory in Gaza. Netanyahu: “A decision has been made to go all the way. We are very close.”
Reservist soldiers who were wounded during the fighting over the past year and a half met on Monday evening with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as part of the activities of the War Wounded Forum.
During the meeting, the Prime Minister told the soldiers, “We will conquer Gaza, and our security control will remain there forever. Within days, things are going to happen in Gaza. Things will happen that you haven’t seen before.”
He added, “We didn’t do everything we’ve done in Gaza so far just to return to the starting point. Things have changed; a decision has been made to go all the way. We are very close.”
Members of the forum had previously clarified their demand to achieve a complete victory in the war against Hamas and to end what they called “political and security stagnation.”
Yotam Asban, who was wounded in battle in the Gaza Strip, said, “We realized that our war didn’t end on the battlefield. We can’t return to fight; I personally can’t return to fight. We understood that our war didn’t end on the battlefield, and the war continues on another front—fighting here.”
He continued. “The forum is making a clear call to the Prime Minister, the cabinet, the political leadership, and the General Staff Forum—for a complete victory in the war, to stop the stagnation, to break out of this back-and-forth, and to demand a full victory, with the understanding that the blood of our friends and our own blood will not be in vain. I, who last week attended six different memorial ceremonies, promised my friends who fell in the same incident in which I was wounded that their blood would not be in vain. For once, may the State of Israel know how to decisively resolve this matter as it should, without folding, without groveling before some organization of a few Hamasniks.”
Lt. Col. (Res.) Tomer Bruck, a reservist battalion commander wounded in combat, said, “Part of the idea we’re talking about is to reduce the issue of raids. No more raids. We’re supposed to take the matter forward. There’s a very established method in attack and combat—capturing territory, and it’s not shameful to say that: seizing the territory, clearing the area, destroying Hamas’s capabilities, and then, if we need civilian control, that too.”
Yishai Rachamim Levi, a Golani fighter wounded at Zikim Beach, added, “We’re here at the entrance to the Prime Minister’s Office with a clear call—that the same heroism that carried us in battle, the same heroism that drives us through the journey of rehabilitation, is the heroism that must not waver in the eyes of decision-makers and must lead the people of Israel to a clear victory over Hamas.”
