Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, hours after forming an emergency government and wartime cabinet, foreshadowed a major ground attack on Gaza by promising to destroy Hamas.
“Every Hamas terrorist is a dead man,” Netanyahu said at a late-night briefing, flanked by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Benny Gantz, the leader of an opposition party.
Five days after the Palestinian military group carried out the deadliest assault on Israel in half a century, both sides are bracing for a bloody confrontation with Israeli troops amassing by the Gaza border. The fate of scores of hostages snatched by Hamas over the weekend hangs in the balance.
