Netanyahu rejects Gaza ceasefire: victory ‘within reach’

Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the terms of a ceasefire in Gaza offered by Hamas and rejected U.S. pressure for faster progress toward an internationally mediated settlement to the war, saying there could be no solution to Israel’s security problems short of “absolute victory” over the militant group.

According to The Guardian, the Israeli Prime Minister also confirmed that the Israel Defense Forces had been ordered to begin operations in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, whose population has swelled with hundreds of thousands of displaced people.

In a sharp rebuke to the Biden administration and visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in the Middle East, Netanyahu said it would take more months of fighting before Hamas was defeated.

Claiming that victory was “within reach,” the Israeli prime minister said: “There is no alternative to military collapse [ХАМАСА]. Civil collapse [правления ХАМАСА] it won’t happen without the military.”

Osama Hamdan, a Hamas spokesman, told a news conference in Beirut that Netanyahu’s continued push for war in Gaza shows the goal is “genocide” against Palestinians, and that a Hamas delegation led by senior official Khalil al-Hayya will depart on Thursday to Cairo “to continue” negotiations within the framework of the Egyptian-Qatari efforts.

An Egyptian official told AFP that a “new round of negotiations” aimed at achieving “calm in the Gaza Strip” would begin in Cairo on Thursday.

The deadliest round of fighting in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has killed more than 27,000 Palestinians, leveled entire neighborhoods, forced the vast majority of Gaza’s population from their homes and condemned a quarter of the population to starvation, The Guardian writes.

There is growing international concern that Israel is preparing a ground offensive in Rafah. UN officials said an attack there would cause “massive loss of life” and risk war crimes.

Saying that no part of the Gaza Strip would be “safe” from Israeli advances, Netanyahu, whose ratings have fallen in opinion polls, also ruled out any agreement that would leave Gaza under full or partial Hamas control.

Earlier in the day, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told Blinken that Hamas’s response to the ceasefire negotiations guaranteed their rejection by Israel.

Speaking at a televised news conference on Wednesday evening, Netanyahu said that “conceding to Hamas’s delusional conditions,” which include a call for a 135-day ceasefire in exchange for the release of hostages, “will lead to another massacre and a great tragedy for Israel, to which no one would be ready to accept.”

In a blow to the hopes of the families of the remaining hostages held by Hamas, Netanyahu added that the hostages would only be released if military pressure on Hamas continued.

US Secretary of State Blinken earlier suggested there was “a lot of work to be done” to bridge the gap between Israel and Hamas after the militant group put forward its far-reaching proposal for a permanent cessation of fighting.

But Blinken insisted that an agreement between Israel and Hamas remained possible, arguing that the militant group’s offer at least provided an opportunity to “continue negotiations” over the hostages.

“While there are some clear shortcomings in Hamas’s response, we believe this creates space for an agreement to be reached, and we will work tirelessly until we get there,” Blinken told reporters in Tel Aviv hours later. after meeting with Netanyahu.

According to The Guardian, Hamas has developed a detailed three-phase plan, expected to last four and a half months, in response to a proposal prepared by the United States, Israel, Qatar and Egypt. The plan called for all hostages to be released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, including senior militants, and an end to the war.

Some mediators viewed the proposal positively because it signaled that the group was willing to engage in further negotiations.

Hamas put forward its three-stage plan late Tuesday through Qatari and Egyptian mediators. The proposal would see Palestinian militants exchange Israeli hostages they took on October 7 for 1,500 Palestinian prisoners, ensure the reconstruction of Gaza, ensure a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops and exchange bodies and remains, according to a draft document seen by Reuters.

The plan called for three phases of truce lasting 45 days each. It was adopted in response to an Israeli proposal two weeks ago for a six-week cessation of hostilities and the phased release of some 130 Israelis still held hostage in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

According to Hamas’s plan, all Israeli female hostages, males under 19, and the elderly and sick will be released during the first 45-day phase in exchange for Palestinian women and children from Israeli prisons.

The remaining male hostages will be released in the second stage, and the bodies will be exchanged in the third. By the end of the third stage, Hamas expected the parties to reach an agreement to end the war.

The truce would also increase the flow of food and other aid to Gaza’s 2.3 million desperate civilians, who face severe shortages of food, water and medicine.

Blinken, who is making his fifth visit to the region since the war began, is trying to push forward ceasefire talks while pushing for a broader post-war settlement in which Saudi Arabia would normalize relations with Israel in exchange for a “clear, credible, time-bound path to the creation of a Palestinian state.”

But Netanyahu opposes Palestinian statehood and his hawkish governing coalition could fall apart if he is seen to be making too many concessions, The Guardian notes.

A significant stumbling block in the negotiations so far has been how many and which Palestinians will be released. During the week-long November truce, 110 Israelis were released in exchange for 240 Palestinians, who were mostly women and children detained for minor offenses or in administrative detention. The new list is believed to include hardened militants serving life sentences.

Israel launched its military offensive in the strip after Hamas killed 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages in a devastating cross-border attack in Israel on October 7.