Israel orders military to hunt down remaining Oct 7 Hamas attackers

Israel has ordered its military to hunt down and kill the remaining participants in the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, Defence Minister Israel Katz said, putting their number at 2,000.

Katz on Monday said about 6,000 attackers crossed the border into Israel on that day, adding that 4,000 of them had already been killed and that he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had ordered the military to pursue the rest.

“We ordered the military to pursue and kill them all, from the most senior to the most junior,” Katz said.

Separately, speaking on Monday at a state memorial ceremony at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said Israel will continue pursuing those who carried out the attack



and held hostages, and to end Hamas’ rule in Gaza.

Earlier in September, Netanyahu in his address to the General Assembly, shot down accusations of carrying out a “genocide” of Palestinians in Gaza, calling it “the greatest lie of the century”.

Netanyahu projected a powerful country that was fighting on seven fronts, against “Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Iran, militias in Iraq, militias in Syria, Palestinian terrorists in Judea Samaria (West Bank)”.

“They all ganged up on us to wipe us off the face of the Earth. They failed”, he said.

When Hamas attacked Israel from Gaza in October 2023, he said, “We didn’t collapse. Instead, we rose and fought like lions”.