Palestinians brace for Rafah siege
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects ceasefire demand of Hamas
JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday dismissed Hamas’ demand for a ceasefire and ordered troops to prepare to move on the city of Rafah in Gaza’s far south, where more than one million Palestinians have sought refuge.
Netanyahu had told a televised briefing that he had ordered troops to “prepare to operate” in Rafah and that a “total victory” by Israel over Hamas was just months away.
But he warned that accepting the Palestinian militant group’s “bizarre demands” for a ceasefire would not lead to the return of hostages, charging that “it will only invite another massacre.”
In Beirut, a senior Hamas official responded, saying Netanyahu’s “insistence on continuing the aggression totally confirms that the goal... is genocide against the Palestinian people.”
The official, Osama Hamdan, urged “all resistance factions... to continue the fight” and to be cautious of Israeli “treachery during the final quarter-hour of this confrontation.”
One of the hostages released as part of a temporary ceasefire deal brokered in November also put pressure on the Israeli leader.
“Everything is in your hands,” Adina Moshe told a news conference in Tel Aviv, addressing Netanyahu.
“You’re the one. And I’m very afraid and very concerned that if you continue with this line of destroying Hamas, there won’t be any hostages left to release,” she said.
Meanwhile, United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking in Tel Aviv hours after meeting Netanyahu, said he still saw “space for agreement to be reached” and that he had warned the Israeli leader against actions and talk that “inflame tensions.”
“But we are very much focused on doing that work and hopefully being able to resume the release of hostages that was interrupted” after a week-long truce in November, Blinken said after meeting Netanyahu in Jerusalem.