Iqbal Jassat
Military experts will agree that if any power sets out beating war drums and loudly proclaim clearly defined goals but after a lengthy period of killing innocent people, including causing enormous devastation and destruction by its army, is forced to accept a ceasefire without attaining any of its goals militarily, cannot claim to be victorious.
Yet this is exactly what Israel's war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu is claiming, despite failing miserably apart from the horrendous genocide and mass slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza.
For understanding the context of Netanyahu's boastful claims of “victory”, it is necessary to recall that among his key demands to justify invoking Amalek days after October 7, 2023 was to “wipe Gaza off the map”, the “destruction of Hamas” and the “return of all hostages (sic)”.
Jewish media accounts remind us that on October 28, 2023, as zionist Israel began its ground invasion of Gaza, Netanyahu announced Israel’s “one supreme goal: To destroy the murderous enemy.”
Israeli soldiers, he boasted, “are longing to recompense the murderers . . . They are committed to eradicating this evil from the world.”
And recall too Netanyahu quoting Devarim 25:17: “Remember what Amalek did to you”.
In a letter to soldiers published a few days later, Netanyahu repeated this quotation, explaining that “the current fight against the murderers of ‘Hamas’ is another chapter in the generations-long story of our national resilience.”
He brazenly referred to the biblical account as a perpetual commandment to kill any descendents of the Amalekite people.
Indeed, South Africa soon cited Netanyahu’s comments, along with other invocations of Amalek by Israeli politicians and military personnel, in its complaint to the International Court of Justice as proof of Israel’s genocidal intent toward Gaza.
South Africa's lawyer and legal activist Tembeka Ngcukaitobi reminded the world court that Netanyahu, on October 28, used the biblical Amalek narrative while inciting his soldiers to attack Gaza.
This violent theory refers to crushing the entire population of Gaza, including women and children.
The South African lawyer also said that Netanyahu repeated the Amalek narrative in another letter to Israeli soldiers on November 3.
“You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. 1 Samuel 15:3 ‘Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass’,” Netanyahu said.
Fast forward to September 2025 when all hell was let loose in Gaza City.
Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from there, said it was “heartbreaking to watch these high-rise towers in Gaza City falling one after another due to the systematic tactics of the Israeli military”.
“It’s not just a building that’s been destroyed – it’s the services that come with it, services that are crucial for people trying to live their lives after nearly two years of war.”
A few weeks before that Netanyahu once again made it clear that Israel plans to take control of Gaza.
In an interview on Fox News in Jerusalem, in his defiance and arrogance he said Israelis “intend to” take over Gaza.
However, his blind pursuit to obliterate all signs of life in Gaza, by bombing it relentlessly around the clock for two years, resulted in Netanyahu digging his own grave.
Palestine became a dominant symbol of resilience and resistance across the world.
Unprecedented mobilisation of solidarity with the Palestinians saw millions take to the streets in all corners of the globe demanding a halt to the genocide as well as denouncing Netanyahu and his criminal gang of warlords.
United Nations human rights chief condemned Israel for what he described as the “mass killing” of civilians and deliberate obstruction of lifesaving aid.
Volker Turk, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, accused Israel of committing “war crime upon war crime” and said the scale of devastation in Gaza was “shocking the conscience of the world”.
To add to Netanyahu’s misery, a new report published against the backdrop of intensifying Israeli military operations in Gaza City, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, urged Israel and all countries to fulfil their obligations under international law “to end the genocide” and punish those responsible.
“The Commission finds that Israel is responsible for the commission of genocide in Gaza,” insisted Navi Pillay, Chair of the Commission. “It is clear that there is an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza through acts that meet the criteria set forth in the Genocide Convention".
With the global tide of public opinion turned against Netanyahu and his genocidal regime, he is desperate to now inject a narrative of “victory and success”, with Trump along his side.
Having failed to defeat Hamas and the Resistance groups, and also not succeeding militarily to free the captives, Netanyahu grabbed Trump’s rope to drag him out of the hole.
The reality of Israel’s failure is eloquently summarised by senior Hamas leader Osama Hamdan:
• One of the political indications of the ceasefire agreement in Gaza is that the occupation was unable to achieve the goals it set with military force;
• The enemy was forced to negotiate with the resistance, and after two years, it could not eradicate it despite all international and regional support;
• The resistance will not hand over its weapons before liberation, and after liberation, they will remain for self-defense;
• We will not accept exchanging reconstruction for our national right to resistance;
• We will not leave the Gaza Strip; rather, we are planning for Hamas leaders abroad to return to Gaza, and the Palestinian people reject displacement.
Iqbal Jassat, Executive Member Media Review Network, Johannesburg, South Africa
