00:00 First, Israel says its forces battled Hamas fighters inside the Gaza Strip overnight,
00:05 striking some 300 targets.
00:08 Israeli airstrikes also continue to pound the enclave.
00:11 Gaza's Hamas-controlled health ministry says more than 8,300 people have been killed
00:17 since Israel launched its counterattack.
00:20 Speaking Monday, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu categorically ruled out
00:24 a ceasefire, saying it would be a "surrender" to Hamas.
00:28 "Just as the United States would not agree to a ceasefire after the bombing of Pearl
00:34 Harbor or after the terrorist attack of 9/11, Israel will not agree to a cessation of hostilities
00:41 with Hamas after the horrific attacks of October 7.
00:46 Calls for a ceasefire are calls for Israel to surrender to Hamas, to surrender to terrorism,
00:53 to surrender to barbarism.
00:56 That will not happen."
00:59 Earlier today, we spoke to ABC's correspondent in Jerusalem, Jordana Miller.
01:03 She told us more.
01:04 The Israeli army is continuing to add troops and tanks to its ground offensive, primarily
01:12 in northern Gaza.
01:15 It appears the strategy will be at some point to lay siege to Gaza City, and that will be
01:21 the first and major spot where Israel will really attack.
01:27 That's because Israel believes Hamas's headquarters are there.
01:32 That many of its militants may be hiding in the tunnels there below.
01:38 So it appears that yesterday, even from one of the local journalists there, we saw a tank
01:45 set temporarily, at least, holding part of the Salahuddin Highway, which runs from north
01:51 to south through the Gaza Strip.
01:53 For now, Netanyahu is all in, and it has to say that the country is as well.
02:00 This has been a kind of watershed moment for Israel, where not only the people, but the
02:08 leaders have realized that there is no negotiating with Hamas.
02:12 They will not moderate their position.
02:15 These are not people who were ever around the peace table, who will ever accept that
02:22 Israel is here for good, that Jews have also a right to this land.
02:28 And that's why I think also Israelis find it so disturbing when they hear Palestinians
02:33 or others saying, well, this conflict didn't start on October 7th, the day of this terrible
02:38 attack.
02:41 That's true.
02:42 It didn't start then.
02:44 But Hamas was never one of the parties trying to negotiate with Israel, and they were never
02:50 part of Oslo, et cetera.
02:52 So this is a kind of extreme element that simply has to be pushed away from Israel's
02:58 borders.
02:59 And it seems that Netanyahu, who's very war-verse, has finally decided that this is the moment,
03:05 even if it takes months, that Israel is going to try to push Hamas, their power base, their
03:11 country, destroy their military assets and get them off Israel's borders.
03:16 There's plenty of places they can go, Tehran, Beirut, Damascus.
03:21 Israel doesn't want them anymore in the Gaza Strip.
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