Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu in a late night address on Wednesday declared that every Hamas member is a dead man.
According to Jerusalem Post, Netanyahu spoke during a press conference by the newly formed emergency government set up to prosecute the war against Hamas.
The other members of the emergency government are Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, of the Likud Party, and former defense minister Benny Gantz, who heads the National Unity Party.
As the war enters the sixth day, the Israeli emergency government has vowed to wipe Hamas off the face of the earth.
“We are fighting with full force on all fronts. We have gone over to the offensive. Every Hamas member is a dead man,” Netanyahu said.
The Israeli Prime Minister likened Hamas to the Islamic State, ISIS, noting that the Palestinian militants burned people alive, raped victims and shot babies in the head when they invaded Southern Israel on Saturday.
The attack, described as the most deadly in decades, prompted retaliatory air strikes on Palestinian settlements in Gaza by the Israeli forces.
The Israeli government declared war after the attack, with the Israel Defense Forces, IDF, embarking on Operation Swords of Iron.
“We saw bound children shot in the head, people burned while they were still alive and young people who were raped.
“Hamas is ISIS and we will destroy it like the world destroyed ISIS,” Netanyahu added.
Defense Minister Gallant vowed that Hamas will be “obliterated”.
“Hamas — the Islamic State of Gaza — will be wiped from the face of the earth. It will not continue to exist.
“There will be no situation in which Israeli children are murdered and we all go about our business,” Gallant said.
He described the Hamas onslaught on Southern Israel as “the worst terror attack the world has ever seen”.
“Thousands of terrorists stormed in to destroy, murder, loot and slaughter,” he said, noting that, even as a soldier who has witnessed many tough situations “I never saw anything like this”.
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera, in an update on the war on Thursday morning, reported that the Palestinian health ministry said the death toll in Gaza had risen to 1,200.
About 5,600 persons have sustained injuries.
The number of people killed in Israel had also risen to 1,200.
Al Jazeera also quoted the United Nations, UN, as saying that 338,934 Palestinians have been displaced in Gaza as Israel’s devastating bombing raids continue overnight.
A former Human Rights Watch chief, Kenneth Roth, said Israel’s “indiscriminate and disproportionate attack” on Palestinian civilians could constitute “a war crime”.
