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Danny Danon: “Finish the job” against Hamas

Former ambassador to UN says Israel must go into Rafah to finish the war

Israeli politician Danny Danon has told the ̳ that Israel must ‘finish the job’ against Hamas, which he said has ‘dragged’ on too long.

Speaking on HARDtalk, the country’s former ambassador to the United Nations said that ‘by now…we should have finished the job, we should have entered Rafah’.

The Likud politician and member of the country’s Knesset said one of the reasons the war is still ongoing six months after Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel which killed about 1,200 people, was ‘because we listened to the international community who asked us to slow down’.

Challenged by Stephen Sackur on the number of people killed during Israel’s offensive in Gaza since the attack – more than 33,000 according to the Hamas-run health ministry – Mr Danon, an ally of Prime Minister Netanyahu, said ‘the death toll is on the shoulders of Hamas’ which had ‘restarted the war on October 7…We had a ceasefire before that’.

Speaking from Jerusalem, Mr Danon said Israel must eliminate Hamas from Gaza. ‘Once we started the war, we have to finish the war, and that’s what I expect from my government; to go into Rafah, to finish the job’. He claimed this would ‘allow a better future for the people who live in Gaza…for the future of Gaza we should work faster, finish Hamas and allow a new future for Gaza’.

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3 minutes