Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told CBS News on Sunday that Israel will soon launch a military operation in Rafah and end the war in Gaza in several weeks.

Speaking to Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation, Netanyahu said: “Hamas is a terrorist organization that- once we begin the Rafah operation, the intense phase of the fighting is weeks away from completion, not months, weeks away from completion. And that is- we’ve already destroyed 18 of the 24 Hamas terrorist battalions. So we- we have– and four of them are concentrated in the Rafah. We can’t leave the last Hamas stronghold without taking care of it, obviously, we have to do it. But understand, too, that I’ve asked the army to submit to me a double plan, first to evacuate to enable the evacuation of the Palestinian civilians in Gaza, and, obviously, second, to destroy the remaining Hamas battalions. That gets us a real, real distance towards the completion of our victory, and that- we’re not going to give it up. If we have a deal, it’ll be delayed somewhat. But it’ll happen. If we don’t have a deal, we’ll do it anyway. It has to be done. Because total victory is our goal, and total victory is within reach. Not months away, weeks away once we begin the operation.”

Responding to a question about the civilian population in Rafah, the prime minister said: “We’re on the same page with the U.S. on this, because that’s how we do it. The reason you have that population in Rafah is because we actually cleared them away from the other places, the zones, combat zones that we had, that’s why they’re there. So now there’s room for them to go north of Rafah, to the places that we’ve already finished fighting in.”

Referring to a possible hostage deal, Netanyahu said: “I’m not sure the exact duration, but I can tell you that we’re all working on it. We want it, I want it. Because we want to liberate the remaining hostages, we’ve already brought half of them back. And I appreciate the effort, the combined effort of Israel, the United States, to bring back the remaining hostages. I can’t tell you if we’ll have it. But if Hamas goes down from its delusional claims and goes down- can bring them down to earth, then we’ll have the progress that we all want.”

“But Hamas started out with just crazy demands. And, you know, it’s- it’s too soon to say if they’re- if they’ve abandoned them, but if they do abandon them and get into what you call the ballpark, they’re not even in the city. They’re in another planet. But if they come down to a- a reasonable situation, then yes, we’ll have a hostage deal.”

Brennan then confronted Netanyahu, saying: “There is growing distrust of you personally, sir, you know this, in the U.S. Congress and within the Biden White House. When your closest ally is telling you things like this, and telling you that you need to reconsider a strategy, isn’t it worth considering?”

Netanyahu responded: “I think that the U.S. is- agrees with us on the goal of destroying Hamas. And on the goal of releasing the hostages. The decisions of how to do that are left with us, and with me and the elected cabinet of Israel. And we’re doing that. A lot of things that the U- that we were told by the best of friends initially, turned out not to be true. They said you can’t enter the- the ground war without having enormous complications. They said you cannot fight, you can’t enter Gaza City, you can’t go into the tunnels, it will be a terrible bloodbath. All of that turned out to be not true. Our soldiers are in the tunnel network. We don’t have to take apart hundreds of kilometers of tunnels, we are taking apart the missile production factories that are underground, the command and control headquarters, the computers that are there, the money that is there, the weapons that are there, and the ammos that- that is there. We’re doing that methodically. So we’re- we’re doing the war- you can’t substitute for the Israeli military command. And we’re doing it very responsibly. The- John Spencer, who’s the head of urban warfare at West Point, says that no other army has gone to the lengths that Israel’s army has gone to clear civilians out of harm’s way, even though Hamas is doing everything to keep them in harm’s way.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)