Israel says war on Gaza likely to last another seven months
Al JazeeraNational security adviser says he expects another ‘seven months of fighting’ as Israel expands Rafah offensive. In an interview with Israel’s Kan public broadcaster on Wednesday, Tzachi Hanegbi said “we are expecting another seven months of fighting” to destroy the military and governing capabilities of Hamas and the smaller Palestinian Islamic Jihad group. Hanegbi defended Israel’s ongoing operations in Rafah, on Gaza’s border with Egypt, saying the frontier had become a “smuggling kingdom” since 2007, when Hamas began governing Gaza. Later on Wednesday, an Israeli military spokesman said the army had gained “operational control” over the narrow Philadeplhi Corridor, a buffer zone between Egypt and Gaza that was created as part of the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. Israel claims it must dismantle Hamas’s last remaining battalions in Rafah and also said it will seek indefinite security control over the Gaza Strip.