Israel's actions in Rafah should have happened four months ago, rather than wavering on going into the southern Gaza city, as that was a "big mistake," Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Sunday.
"I think it's a result of the internal misguided policies but also international pressure, and we cannot succumb to the pressure," Bennett told Newsmax's "Wake Up America Weekend." "We've got to go and destroy Hamas, period."
Israeli tanks rolled into eastern Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip early Sunday, while continuing to increase pressure on Rafah, described by Israeli officials as a stronghold for the Hamas militants.
"The reason we need to go into Rafah to destroy the terrorists is because that's where they are," Bennett told Newsmax. "We could imagine that they are in other places, but a big bulk of the terrorists are trapped in Rafah and we need to go destroy them so Hamas cannot rear its head again."
Meanwhile, Israeli Cabinet Minister-without-Portfolio Benny Gantz has called for the country's elections to be moved up to September, and protesters hit the streets in Tel Aviv this weekend, also calling for early elections, but Bennett wouldn't comment on whether he is considering challenging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"I never talk about domestic politics abroad," he said. "I think you are right that there is considerable dissatisfaction with the current leadership, with too much hesitancy, too much wavering."
The Rafah operation, Bennett added, should have ended long ago, as "time is not on our side.
Still, he said that the Israelis are united on their main goal of destroying Hamas and getting the hostages they seized released.
Bennett also spoke out about the fears of civilian casualties in an invasion of Rafah, which President Joe Biden has cited while warning that the United States will not supply weapons for an attack on the Gazan city.
"Half of the casualties in Gaza are Hamas terrorists, which, as you know, in urban warfare, that's a very low ratio of terrorists to civilians," Bennett said. "We're getting this message, we don't want any civilian casualties. We hear the world saying that. Well of course we don't want civilian casualties. No one wants civilian casualties."
However, if a policy of "zero civilian casualties" is adopted, "then all the terror groups across the world are going to adopt that modus operandi and hide behind citizens and get away with it," said Bennett.
"It would be the biggest mistake in the war on terror because we would see that in New York and Boston, in London, and Paris, terrorists using civilians as human shields," he said.
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