Newspaper Front pages for October 18th,2023

TEL AVIV-The head of the Israeli National Security Council, Tzachi Hanegbi, confirmed that Tel Aviv has received a portion of American military aid, indicating that Israel will not be alone if it is attacked, and there will be American intervention to support it.

He added that American support for Israel pushes it to achieve the goals of the war and what he called “complete victory,” describing what he called Israel’s enemy as worse than ISIS, in reference to the Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas.”

In the context of talking about American support, it was mentioned that US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken attended a meeting in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and army commanders in Tel Aviv presented the Israeli plan in detail in its war against Hamas.

Regarding the Iranian threats to Israel from the north, he explained that Israel is capable of withstanding the security threats from the north and south, stressing that the war on the southern front in Gaza will be long-term and strong, and Israel is prepared for the north.

He stated that the first goal of the war is to destroy the military and authoritarian capabilities of Hamas, stressing that Tel Aviv wants to eliminate Hamas as a force that threatens the citizens of Israel, as he described it.

He also said that Israel called on the residents of northern Gaza to leave the combat zones as quickly as possible and move toward the south to be able to identify safe areas where humanitarian aid would be provided to the residents.

As for the issue of the prisoners, he explained that Israel is making unremitting efforts to remove the fog from their situation, noting that Netanyahu met with representatives of the families of the prisoners and understood what he described as the nightmare that he said these families were experiencing. 

However, he stressed that Israel's priority is to achieve "the greatest victory," as he put it. (Al Jazeera)