Netanyahu shuts down CNN anchor who demands he take personal responsibility for Hamas barbaric Oct. 7 attack

Let’s start with what’s happening at that hospital. Israeli forces have said that they are engaged in intense fighting around Al Shifa Hospital, the largest medical facility in Gaza. I know that you say that the hospital sits on top of a Hamas command and control center, but of course, there are also patients, civilians, sheltering in that complex, getting treatment. So how do you intend to go after Hamas without putting sick and injured civilians in that hospital at more risk than they already are? Well, we’ve called to evacuate all the patients from that hospital, and, in fact, 100 or so have already been evacuated.

I’ve called for field hospitals. The French president has sent a floating hospital ship. I’ve asked the Emirates to send a field hospital. They have, and other countries have done the same. I expect the UN to build this. So there’s no reason why we just can’t take the patients out of there instead of letting Hamas use it as a command center for terrorism, for the rockets that they fire against Israel, for the terror tunnels that they use to kill Israeli civilians.

Remember, Donna, let’s keep this in focus. Just imagine what would happen if the United States were attacked viciously by 20. 911, 20. That’s the proportionate number. 50,000 American killed, 10,000 Americans held hostage, including babies, elderly, women, children. 10,000 rockets falling on your cities. That’s the number of rockets that are falling all the time on our cities may fall during this interview, in fact. And we’ll have to go to a shelter.

That’s what’s happening. So what would America do? It would take all its force and go after these killers. And what if these killers embed themselves in hospitals and schools and UN facilities? You do everything in your power to get the civilians out, which is what we’re doing. We call them to leave. But you certainly wouldn’t give immunity to the terrorists. So we’re obviously treading carefully when it comes to hospitals, but we’re also not going to give immunity to the terrorists.

And so Far, even though Hamas has tried to prevent the civilians from leaving, hundreds of thousands have left, sometimes having to go through Hamas gunpoints and gunfire. Just to be clear, keep them in harm’s way. Just to be clear, sir, Israel will aid, help these civilians who are quite sick and inside these hospitals come out, not just in Al Shifa, but there are other hospitals where this is? Yes.

Yes. We’re telling them to leave. Telling them or helping them? Helping them by creating safe corridors. So we have designated routes to a safe zone south of Gaza City where there’s no fighting and we’re telling them, go ahead, move. And by the way, 70,000 have moved three days ago. I think 50,000 moved yesterday. More will move today. We want all the civilians to be removed out of harm’s way, and Hamas is doing everything in their power to keep them in harm’s way.

They put missiles below? Yes. Go ahead. Do you believe that there are hostages below that hospital? Israeli or American hostages? Well, I’m not going to go into the intelligence picture we have, but there’s been this vicious thing. They take hostages. Imagine a baby is held hostage. Who takes a baby hostage? I don’t know if you have children, Donna. I’m sure your camera crew has. And we all have children.

What is this? Taking children, hostages, threatening to kill mean? This is savagery of the highest order. So obviously, we’re doing everything in our power to achieve two things. One, destroy Hamas, because without it, none of us have a future. And it’s not only our war, it’s your war, too. It’s the battle of civilization against barbarism. And if we don’t win here, this scourge will pass. The Middle east will pass to other places.

Middle east will fall. Europe is next. You’ll be next. But the first goal is to destroy Hamas, and the second goal is to bring back our hostages. We’re trying to do both. Yeah. So those are completely understandable goals, goals that the United States very much supports. Understanding that Hamas is a barbaric terrorist organization, But Israel is not Hamas. And the United States also makes very clear that democracies have to do better.

The secretary of State, Tony Blinken, said that far too many Palestinian civilians have been killed. What is your response to that? I think any civilian loss is a tragedy, and the blame should be placed squarely on Hamas because it prevents them from leaving the war zone. Sometimes at gunpoint. It fired on the safe Zord and the safe corridor that we enacted the other day to prevent Palestinians from leaving harm’s way.

It puts rockets inside schools, hospitals. It has tunnels below children’s mean. This is what we’re dealing with. Absolutely. We can’t give them immunity because Israel isn’t Hamas. Is Israel doing everything possible to take that into consideration? And more than that, we’re trying to minimize civilian casualties as a result of our ground action. I think the number of civilian casualties is actually being reduced because people are heeding our calls to leave the area and defying Hamas’s attempt to keep them there.

And we’ll do everything in our power to do. You know, the one example I can give you is this. Look, these savages, they perpetrated the worst horrors on Jews since the Holocaust. The German chancellor, Schrozz, called them the new Nazis. Well, look at the old Nazis. The Allies were attacked by Hitler, and so they invaded France and then Germany. And when they did that, they went into the cities.

They had to fight the German army that was often embedded in the cities in civilian neighborhoods, and many civilians were killed. So who was the blame laid onto? Did they say, well, the Nazis, the Allies are wrong. The Allies should stop fighting. Or they said, look, use force as judiciously as you can, but don’t give the Nazis any refuge. Defeat the Nazis. Which is what we’re doing, prime Minister, using force in the most judicious way.

But we have to defeat these new Nazis, and we will, for our sake. For your sake, too. I want to ask about the hostages. Thousands of Israelis, including families of hostages, rallied this weekend right across the street from where you are right now. They’re very frustrated that they’re not getting more information from you on where their loved ones are. Believe that the government, your government, is not doing enough to get them back.

What do you say to them? It’s understandable. They’re under tremendous distress. They’re under just torture. You can imagine that you have your father, your husband, your son, your daughter taken by these savages. Are you doing enough and held it? We’re doing everything we can around the clock, and I can’t talk about it. I personally met with hostage families, families of hostages, several times, and it just tears your heart out.

But, yes, we’re doing everything and many things that I can’t say here, obviously, but this is one of our two war goals. I mean, one is to destroy Hamas and the second is to bring back our hostages. And we’ll do everything we can, and we think the entire world should join us. Demand from the Red Cross that it. Demand visits to the hostages. Demand the unconditional release of the hostages.

Say that this is barbarism that is unaccepted, unacceptable. I like to see the UN. I’d like to see the UN Secretary General basically laid the blame on Israel, laid the blame on these savages. Demand that they obey international law because Israel is fighting according to international law. The Israeli army is doing an exemplary job trying to minimize civilian casualties and maximize terrorist casualties. But we need the international community not to give sucker support and moral support and legitimacy to sheer evil that Hamas represents.

Support Israel. Attack Hamas. Prime Minister Netanyahu, one of the questions right now is when it comes to hostages is whether there can be a negotiation that works towards a deal to free large groups of hostages in exchange for a sustained, days long pause in fighting. Is that acceptable to you? And if so, how long of a pause would Israel be willing to allow? I said that we’re going to pursue the battle to destroy Hamas to its end.

But I also said that the only ceasefire that we would consider is one in which we have our hostages released. And that remains true. Doesn’t mean that we can’t give humanitarian pause for a few hours in a place, a specific time and place where we want to have a humanitarian corridor and have the people leave safely. We’ve done that and hundreds of thousands have left the fighting. So how long of a pause would you be willing to support? Well, so far we’ve dealt with a few hours.

If you’re talking about a ceasefire. Well, I’m not going to get into that. No, I’m not talking about a ceasefire, just a longer pause. Days, for example. That’s not a pause. If you’re talking about stopping the fighting, that’s exactly what Hamas wants. Hamas wants an endless series of pauses that basically dissipate the battle against them. It’s like the Germans after Normandy. They say, okay, let’s have a ceasefire.

You guys hold off. Let us replenish our supplies, let us get out of our terror tunnels, let us rearm ourselves and so on. Obviously, we’re not going to do that. The US says that in order to have a ceasefire, of any ceasefire in the entire area that will require the release of our hostages. The US says that you need an extended pause in order to get the hostages out.

Do you not believe that as well? We don’t disagree with that, but we need to get our hostages out. Okay. The US also says that any post war plan for Gaza must include Palestinian led governance and Gaza unified with the West bank under the Palestinian Authority. You appeared to reject that yesterday. You said Israel will not accept a, quote, civilian authority there that educates its children to hate Israel.

So I just want to be clear. Are you saying that Israel would not accept giving control of Gaza over to the Palestinian Authority after the war? The first thing that we have to do is destroy Hamas because otherwise they’ll do it again and again and again. And they’ve said so, so we’ll destroy Hamas. The second thing we have to understand is that there has to be an overriding and overreaching Israeli military envelope because we’ve seen any place that we leave, we just exit, give it to some other force, very soon, terrorism resurges.

So we’ve achieved nothing. The third thing we have to understand is that a civilian authority has to cooperate in two goals. One is to demilitarize Gaza and the second is to de radicalize Gaza. And I have to say that the Palestinian Authority has unfortunately failed on both counts. They don’t demilitarize the West Bank, Judea and Samaria. We have to do it. We have to go in and fight the terrorists.

They don’t de radicalize. They teach their children the hatred of Israel. They do pay for slay. They pay for terrorist murderers and their families. The more Jews they kill, the more they pay. They refuse to this day, 36 days after this savagery to condemn. So if not the Pamas did on November 7, sorry. If not the PA, well, there has to be a reconstructed civilian authority. There has to be something else.

Otherwise we’re just falling into that same rabbit hole and we’re going to have the same result. Remember, the PA was already in Gaza when Israel left Gaza. It handed the keys over to the PA. And what happened? Within a very short time, Hamas took over, kicked them out. They weren’t willing to fight Hamas. They’re still not willing to fight Hamas. So you have to have some kind of authority, civilian Palestinian Authority, that is willing to fight the terrorists and importantly, must educate their children for a future of peace, peace, cooperation, prosperity, cooperation with Israel, not the annihilation of Israel.

And so far that hasn’t happened. The burden of proof is on the PA and they failed every single camp. I say that regrettably, but honestly, we have to be realistic about what we expect. We can’t fall back on formulas that failed. We have to succeed to succeed to give Gaza a better future. Let’s not bring it to a failed past. Let’s create a different reality there. Prime Minister NeTanyahu, before I let you go, I know you’ve been asked this several times, but I have had multiple people inside Israel reach out to me knowing that I was going to interview you and say the one thing they want to hear from you is that you take personal responsibility for failing to prevent the October 7 attacks and protecting your people.

I know you say the time for that will come after the war. Why won’t you take responsibility now? I’ve already addressed that many times. And I said this whole question will be addressed after the war, just as people would ask. Well, did people ask Franklin Roosevelt after Pearl Harbor? That question. Did people ask George Bush after the surprise attack of every 11th? Look, it’s a question that needs to be asked and these questions were asked and I’ve said that one thing that is important and I’ve said we’re going to answer all these questions, including me.

I’m going to be asked tough questions right now. I think what we have to do is unite the country for one purpose, one purpose alone, and that is to achieve victory. That’s what I did. We formed a unity government where the country is united as never before. And I think that’s what we have to pursue. And what the people expect me to do right now is two things.

One, achieve this victory and bring the hostages back. And second, assure that Gaza never becomes and two, Israelis who are disappointed that you still won’t take responsibility, you say, well, I said that to answer all the questions that are required, including the questions of responsibility. There’ll be enough time for that after the war. Let’s focus on victory. That’s my responsibility now. .