Israel ambassador: war ‘could be over tomorrow’ if Hamas laid down weapons

Israel’s ambassador to Ireland, Dana Erlich, has said the conflict in Gaza “could be over tomorrow” if Hamas laid down its weapons.

Speaking on Newstalk’s Pat Kenny show, Ms Erlich said Palestinian civilians were hostages of Hamas and they needed to be liberated from Hamas. “Their aim is to perpetuate the poverty of their own people.”

Israel could not support any calls for a ceasefire until it saw the text of any agreement, Ms Erlich said.

“When you say that we need a cessation of all the aggressions in Gaza, you are right. We need Hamas to lay down their weapons. And this is what we need the entire world to say. This is not just a ceasefire. If Hamas lay down their weapons, if they released all the kidnapped, this can be over tomorrow.”

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The threat of terror in the region would continue on all the borders “unless we stop it”.

The official estimate of the death toll in Gaza has passed 20,000, according to the Hamas government media office, with 8,000 children and 6,200 women among the dead, and many more missing. Hunger and disease now threaten to add to the death rate significantly.

[ Strikes on Gaza intensify as truce talks grow ‘very serious’ ]

The war started on October 7th, when 1,200 people were killed and 240 kidnapped in a Hamas attack on southern Israel.

The ambassador said there was no guarantee that, when international aid trucks go into Gaza, the aid is going to the civilian population.

“We’ve opened the Kerem Shalom crossing to make sure that more and more trucks of aid go in. There are hundreds of trucks going in. ... And you see the trucks lining up to get into Gaza. What we also see is Hamas terrorists on those trucks firing at people who try to take that aid. And we are not sure that it’s getting to the actual population.”

Ms Erlich said the leaders of Hamas were “sitting in other countries” with a net worth of billions of dollars while their population was starving.

“Their aim is to perpetuate that poverty. They’re not giving that aid to the population. What happens right now in Gaza is a tragedy and we should all work together to resolve it for the benefit of the Palestinian people. But letting Hamas off the hook, this is not the way to help the Palestinian people.”

When asked if the Israeli response had been disproportionate, she said: “we didn’t start this war. Every person getting killed is a tragedy, not just from our end, but from the Palestinian side.”

The Palestinian people are helpless from Hamas, she added, but the international community is not. “And the Irish people who are so vocal about it are not. Where is the outcry for what Hamas is doing? How is this protecting Palestinians when we don’t hold Hamas accountable for what they’re doing?”

There were no victories in war, she said. “What we want is the same objective that we have said from October 7th when we realised the scale of this horrific atrocity, massacre. We want our kidnapped back. We want our borders safe and we want to eliminate the threat of Hamas,” Ms Erlich said.

“So this is not about numbers or an equation that you can make, because all of it, when you look at it, this is tragic. It needs to be stopped.”

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