Day after phone call, Netanyahu rebuffs Biden on Palestinian statehood
JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday that he “will not compromise on full Israeli control” over Gaza and that “this is contrary to a Palestinian state,” rejecting U.S. President Joe Biden’s suggestion that creative solutions could bridge wide gaps between the leaders’ views on Palestinian statehood.
In a sign of the pressures Netanyahu’s government faces at home, thousands of Israelis protested in Tel Aviv calling for new elections, and others demonstrated outside the prime minister’s house, joining families of the more than 100 remaining hostages held by Hamas and other militants. They fear that Israel’s military activity further endangers hostages’ lives.
Netanyahu is also under heat to appease members of his right-wing ruling coalition by intensifying the war against Hamas, which governs Gaza, while contending with calls for restraint from the United States, its closest ally.
Netanyahu posted his statement on social media a day after his first conversation with Biden in nearly a month. Discussing his administration’s position Friday, Biden said “there are a number of types of two-state solutions” and, asked if a two-state solution was impossible with Netanyahu in office, Biden replied, “No, it’s not.”
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said “the refusal to accept the two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians, and the denial of the right to statehood for the Palestinian people, are unacceptable.”
Netanyahu has insisted that the only way to secure the hostages’ return is by crushing Hamas through military means. More than 100 hostages, mostly women and children, were released during a brief November cease-fire in exchange for the release of Palestinian women and minors imprisoned by Israel. Israel has said that more than 130 hostages remain in Gaza, but only about 100 are believed to be alive.
The protest outside Netanyahu’s home in the coastal town of Caesarea grew, with police pushing a few attendees away, sparking arguments.
“We can’t take it anymore. We’ve been told to sit quiet, let the government do its job. Well, it’s not bringing us any result for the last two months,” said Yuval Bar On, whose father-inlaw, Keith Siegel, is among the hostages.
Israeli airstrike in Syria kills at least 5 Iranian advisers
DAMASCUS, Syria — An Israeli strike on the Syrian capital on Saturday destroyed a building used by the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, killing at least five Iranians, Syrian and Iranian state media reported.
The Syrian army said the building in the tightly guarded western Damascus neighborhood of Mazzeh was entirely destroyed, adding that the Israeli air force fired the missiles while flying over Syria’s Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The Israeli military did not comment.
A few hours later, an Israeli drone strike on a car near the southern Lebanese port city of Tyre killed two people, including a Hezbollah member, who were in the vehicle and two people who were in a nearby orchard, an official with the group and Lebanon’s state news agency said.