'Never again is now,' says Netanyahu on Holocaust Rememberance Day

STORY: "Eighty years ago, in the Holocaust, the Jewish people were totally defenseless against those who sought our destruction," Netanyahu said in English remarks that linked the World War Two atrocities to the current conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.

"We will defeat our genocidal enemies," he said. "'Never again' is now."

Netanyahu made the speech during Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, in Jerusalem.

This year's ceremony takes place as the war in Gaza rages on, and recently triggering pro-Palestinian protests in several U.S. campuses.

The war began after Hamas stunned Israel with a cross-border raid on Oct. 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and 252 hostages taken, according to Israeli tallies.

More than 34,600 Palestinians have been killed, 29 of them in the past 24 hours, and more than 77,000 have been wounded in Israel's assault, according to Gaza's health ministry. The bombardment has devastated much of the coastal enclave and caused a humanitarian crisis.

Prospects for a ceasefire appeared slim on Sunday as Hamas reiterated its demand for an end to the war in exchange for the freeing of hostages, and Netanyahu flatly ruled that out.

The annual Holocaust commemorations remember the six million Jews killed by the Nazis during the Second World War.

On Monday (May 6) Israel will come to a standstill as a two-minute siren will be heard across the country.