26 June 2024

Netanyahu says the war’s intensive phase is nearing an end, but fighting will continue.

Isabel Kershner

The intensive phase of Israel’s war against Hamas is “about to end,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a Sunday night interview on Israeli television, although he emphasized that did not mean the conflict was coming to a close.

After the operation in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city and the latest focus of Israel’s ground offensive, the prime minister said, Israel would keep “mowing the lawn” — a term long used in Israeli security circles to denote the use of force aimed at curtailing the regrowth of militant organizations.

Mr. Netanyahu’s remarks were the latest suggestion by senior Israeli officials that the war could soon enter a period of change.

Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, was in Washington for meetings with Biden administration officials, which he said would include discussion of “the transition to ‘Phase C’ in Gaza.”

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