Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that the end of the “intense phase” of Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza was “very close”, and that Israel would soon redeploy forces to its northern border where it has been trading near-daily fire with the Lebanese militant group Hizbollah.
In an interview with Israel’s Channel 14, the Israeli prime minister said the end of this phase of fighting in the enclave would not spell the end of the war. He insisted that Israel would continue until it had destroyed Hamas and freed the roughly 120 hostages the militant group still holds.
But he said the switch to lower-intensity conflict there would give Israel “the possibility to shift some of our capabilities” to the north, where cross-border fire between Israeli forces and Iran-backed Hizbollah has escalated sharply in recent weeks.