The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened the cabinet meeting on Sunday by offering condolences to the families of the 14 soldiers killed in the last 24 hours.

Netanyahu denied that US President Joe Biden successfully pressured him not to carry out a pre-emptive strike on the Shiite terrorist organization Hezbollah.

“It’s a tough morning after a tough day,” Netanyahu said. The entire government and people of Israel send our condolences to the families of the heroes who fell in the war for our home.”

“This war exacts a heavy price from us, but we have no other choice but to continue fighting,” he emphasized.

Netanyahu said he spoke Saturday with Biden and expressed his appreciation for the U.S. stance at the United Nations Security Council that they “softened” for Israel a resolution on the fighting in Gaza.

“I told Biden we will fight until there is total victory, as long as it takes. The US understands this,” he explained.

“There have been reports that the US has prevented and is preventing us from conducting operations in the region. This is not true. Israel is a sovereign country. Our decisions about war are based on our operational assessments, and not to external pressuresNetanyahu insisted.

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Israel had “raised” warplanes to launch a major pre-emptive strike against Hezbollah in Lebanon, four days after the Hamas terror attack. on October 7, but Biden talked Netanyahu out of it at the last minute.

About 8,000 Palestinian fighters dead in Gaza war

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have killed approx 8,000 Palestinian fighters in the Gaza war, as a military spokesman stated in the meantime, adding that this number is derived from targeted bombings, from counts on the battlefields, but also from interrogations of Palestinian prisoners.