‘We are continuing until victory,’ Netanyahu vows day after 9 IDF soldiers killed in single battle

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to keep the war against Hamas going until victory, just one day after nine IDF soldiers lost their lives in one battle in Gaza City, making it one of the bloodiest battles since the ground invasion began.

A tenth soldier was killed in a different encounter in northern Gaza.

“Yesterday we had a very difficult day, and every day we have precious boys dying,” Netanyahu said during a visit to an IDF base.

“They are actual heroes of Israel. My heart and our hearts go out to both the fallen and the families. We know their lives have changed. And yet, I want to say most clearly what I just said to a commander in the field: We are continuing to the end.”

“There is no such question at all. I say this in the face of great pain, but also in the face of international pressures. Nothing will stop us, we will go to the end, to victory, no less than that,” the prime minister said amid reports of an increasing rift with the U.S. over the length of the war.

One of the officers killed in the battle in Shejaiya was Col. Itzhak Ben Basat, head of the Golani Brigade commander’s team. Ben Basat is the most senior officer to have been killed during the ground offensive against Hamas.

Another officer who fell in battle was the commander of the 13th Battalion of the Golani Brigade, Lt.-Col. Tomer Greenberg.

Greenberg had given a motivational speech to his soldiers shortly after the Oct. 7 Hamas invasion, in which he compared Operation Iron Swords to the Yom Kippur War of 1973. 

"The heroism of the fallen soldiers of the 13th Battalion accompanies us in every step we take,” Greenberg told his soldiers.

“We are preparing for a ground incursion into the Gaza Strip, with grueling training and self-and group processing that will eventually prepare us to fight and win. This time, we are the ones who will surprise. We will arrive with strenuous concentration, with all the advanced capabilities and the high standard of the battalion, and we will be the ones who win."