Netanyahu says he won't bow to pressure to call off Rafah invasion

The Israeli leader has come under international pressure to abandon a threatened incursion into the city where more than a million Palestinians are gathered seeking refuge from the war.< /p>

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted on Saturday that Israel would not bow to international pressure to cancel its planned ground invasion of Rafah, the southernmost city of Gaza which is Today, there are more than a million Palestinians.

Many people currently in Rafah are displaced and living in schools, tents or the homes of friends and relatives, in a desperate search for safe haven from the Israeli military campaign, which has lasted more than four months. Their life is a daily struggle to find enough food and water to survive.

“Those who want to prevent us from operating in Rafah are basically telling us: lose war," Mr. Netanyahu said at a news conference in Jerusalem on Saturday evening. "It's true that there is a lot of opposition abroad, but this is exactly the moment when we We must say that we will not do half or a third of the work."

Around the same time that Mr. Netanyahu addressed the press conference, Thousands of anti-government protesters filled a central Tel Aviv thoroughfare - the largest demonstration against the prime minister in months. They filled the same street where massive demonstrations against Mr Netanyahu's efforts to weaken the justice system of the country angered the nation before the start of the war between Israel and Hamas.

Calls for immediate intervention. the election took place above a din of air horns. Protesters lit a red flare amid a drum circle while others waving flags looked on at half a dozen mounted police officers.

“The The people must stand up and the government must go,” said one protester, Yuval Lerner, 57. Mr. Lerner said that even before the war he had lost confidence that the government had the nation's best interests at heart, but "the government has to go," said one protester, Yuval Lerner, 57. . 7 proved it," he said.

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