Israel will be at war for all of 2024, warns IDF chief

Calls by Western leaders to wrap up the conflict are very premature. The war against Hamas is nowhere near finished.

Western leaders, and especially US President Joe Biden, who faces an election this year, are eager for Israel’s war against Hamas to wrap up already.

As expected, the full scale of the horrors visited upon Israel on October 7 have started to fade from Western memories, and so too has the support and backing that was so strong and unequivocal in the opening weeks of the ‘Simhat Torah War.’

With a US presidential election looming, the White House wants to get the Gaza war out of the news cycle as quickly as possible. Biden’s early support for Israel hasn’t been popular with parts of his Democratic constituency, and could cost him votes in November.

But whether or not the mainstream international media continues to focus exaggerated attention on it, the war against Hamas is going to last well beyond the American election, said IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi.

“We will be at war in Gaza, I don’t know if all year—we will be fighting in Gaza all year, that’s for sure,” Halevi said following a situational assessment with officers and commanders of the IDF’s Judea and Samaria Division.

Halevi and Israeli political leaders won’t say as much, but the West, and America in particular, have themselves largely to blame for the fact this war is so costly and lengthy.

For decades, Washington and other Western power brokers have mostly turned a blind eye to the institutionalized incitement in Palestinian society. Mosques, schools and state-run media incessantly brainwash Palestinian men, women and children to seek conflict with Israel, and to happily sacrifices their lives and the lives of their loved ones for the ultimate goal of destroying the Jewish state.

The Oslo Accords stipulated that the Palestinian population be educated for peace. Instead, it has been educated for war.

Read more at: israeltoday.co.il