The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Sunday vowed to achieve victory and said his country’s military “completely transformed reality” in the year since Hamas’s October 7 attack, which has left the country fighting two wars.
Netanyahu promised troops that Israel “will win” as it battles militants in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon and prepares to strike Iran, nearly a year after Palestinian Hamas militants launched an unprecedented onslaught that triggered the Gaza war.
Israel’s army chief, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, stated that, one year on, “we have defeated the military wing of Hamas.”
Netanyahu had vowed to “crush… and destroy” the militants as fighting began last October, but troops have returned to several areas across Gaza where they had previously conducted operations against Hamas, only to find militants regrouping.
In late September, Israel shifted its emphasis north, expanding military operations against Iran-backed Hezbollah, which had been frequently firing rockets across the border from Lebanon in support of Hamas.
“A year ago, we suffered a terrible blow. Over the past 12 months, we have completely transformed reality,” Netanyahu said during a visit to the Lebanon border, according to his office.
Hamas called the October 7 attack “glorious” and said the Palestinians were “writing a new history with their resistance” on Sunday.
Their strike killed 1,205 people; the majority of them were civilians, according to an AFP calculation based on Israeli official estimates that included captives slain in captivity.
Dozens more hostages are still imprisoned. At least 370 people were killed at a single venue, the Nova rave in the Negev desert, which was memorialised with lights, prayer, and music in Tel Aviv on Sunday.
