Israel PM Netanyahu says Gaza war could continue into 2025: report

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Israel's war on Gaza could continue into 2025, Israeli media reported.

Netanyahu gave the warning at a meeting with Israeli chiefs from settlements and kibbutzes near Gaza, at the southern command headquarters in Beersheba. 

He also repeated his vows that Israel would not stop its war, which began on 7 October and has killed more than 24,000 people in Gaza, until Hamas is completely destroyed.

The war on Gaza, launched after Hamas' large-scale attack on southern Israel, has already lasted more than 100 days.

Almost all of Gaza's inhabitants have been displaced from their homes by the Israeli air and ground assault. Survivors of the war are at increasing risk of famine and disease, with Israel limiting the entry of aid and the exit of those in desperate need of medical treatment.

Current and former Israeli intelligence and military officials have previously warned that the war on Gaza could last a year.

Though Israeli officials have sometimes said that they are at war with Hamas and not the Palestinian people as a whole, they have at other times said that they want a mass expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said earlier this week that the war had entered a new phase, claiming that intensive operations in Gaza's north had ended and that they would also soon end in the south.

At Tuesday's meeting, Netanyahu also vowed that settlements and kibbutzes close to Gaza would be rebuilt. Israel put aside about US$250 million in October to rehabilitate Israeli settlements close to the Gaza border.

The local chiefs reportedly said at the meeting that they did not yet want to return to their homes so close to the Gaza border because of Hamas rocket fire and other security concerns.

About 1,100 Israelis were killed in the 7 October attack, and more than 200 people were taken hostage.

The Israeli government's failure to secure the release of hostages still in Gaza has provoked widespread anger in Israel.

The war on Gaza was popular in Israel when it began, but there have since been small-scale protests in the country calling for its end.