President Isaac Herzog was interviewed by French television station BFMTV against the background of French President Emmanuel Macron's visit to Israel this week.
The president expressed his appreciation for the French president's visit to Israel and emphasized that Israel is facing a cruel enemy in Hamas that celebrates death and hides behind its people while carrying out terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens. He also affirmed Israel's commitment to international law.
Herzog said: "Yesterday, I heard the statements of UN Secretary-General Guterres. In a certain sense, he suggested that the source of all this evil is related to the conflict. I completely reject his words because they have a kind of implication or even justification in them for the atrocities and the terrorism that happened here. The problem that causes the conflict in the region is terrorism. This is the most profound problem that deteriorates the peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians is terrorism. We suffer in Israel from endless terrorism - every day. In the last year, as president, I visited grieving families all over the country. But this time we witnessed the most terrible example of terrorism. Since World War Second, since the Holocaust, such a number of Jews have not been murdered in one day."
The president went on to emphasize: "There is a civilization out there of ISIS, of Hamas, of al-Qaeda and all these terrorist organizations, including the Houthis. All they want is basically to conquer the Middle East, kick the Jews out, and next in line will be Europe. You have to learn the philosophy they stand behind. This evil coalition starts from Iran. It has branches all over the Middle East. This is their vision and they use the most brutal means possible, brutality that we never believed we would see after the Holocaust in modern times."
"First and foremost, we must uproot the military capabilities of Hamas. How do we create security? How do we protect the citizens living there? We are not the ones who wanted to go to war. We do not want war. We simply continue to protect our people," Herzog clarified and added: "On the morning of October 7, a war was imposed on us, on the State of Israel and its people, and we need to defend ourselves. First of all, we must take away from them the ability to carry out operations from people's homes and neighborhoods, underground and above ground with a huge amount of weapons, dangerous and deadly weapons, and make sure that people will be able to continue their lives. Perhaps this will also mean that the Palestinians in Gaza will be able to govern themselves and live comfortably in the future."
He continued: "You need to know the truth. There is no electricity in Gaza because of Hamas' missiles - their missiles blow up the wires and damage the electricity. They are the ones who destroyed their own infrastructure. Do you understand how tragic this is? The taxpayers, like all European countries, paid more and more money into the infrastructure in Gaza with the aim of improving the lives of the civilians. Israel opened its borders in recent years and allowed tens of thousands of Gazans to work in Israel. All this was shattered in the terrible attack on our people, with the highest number of murders in our history, torture, and slaughter, while they celebrated the beheadings and abduction of children. This is the situation we find ourselves in. This is a wake-up call for the international community to understand that we are fighting for good. We are fighting a vile evil."
The President clarified: "We care for and we take care of the well-being of our neighbors, we have always done so, we act according to international humanitarian law, we asked the civilians to move to a safe area and the ones blocking them are Hamas. But we need to be given an answer - how exactly should we protect ourselves? What exactly are we supposed to say to the three-year-old girl I met today, a beautiful girl, whose family was kidnapped or killed? What do I say to her? My whole nation experienced a huge tragedy, and I thank all our friends and supporters around the world, who support us while we are bleeding and hurting. We also know how to stand up like a lion. We are a united nation. We have strength, and we show resilience. We have emerged from the worst atrocities in history. We will emerge from this too. We are a strong democracy."
Addressing the rise in antisemitism around the world in the aftermath of Hamas' massacre on October 7, Herzog said: "We are greatly concerned about this, and it exists all over the world. The tragedy is that the first to suffer are Jews - as always, but they are never the last to suffer. This is the real problem. It should not only concern Jews, it is a matter for all democratic societies around the world. They should be concerned and governments should be concerned, and take the necessary precautions. I think it's a big challenge for the world to deal with the rise in antisemitism."