Israel, Hamas dig in as int’l pressure builds for a truce
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday vowed to press ahead with Israel's offensive and blasted a UN Security Council resolution calling for a pause in the fighting, saying it had emboldened Hamas to reject a separate proposal for a ceasefire and hostage release.
As the war in Gaza grinds through a sixth month, each side has publicly insisted that its own idea of victory is in reach and rejected international efforts to stem the bloodshed.
Netanyahu has said Israel can achieve its aims of dismantling Hamas and returning scores of hostages if it expands its ground offensive to the southern city of Rafah, where over half of Gaza's population has sought refuge, many in crowded tent camps.
Hamas has said it will hold onto the hostages until Israel agrees to a more permanent ceasefire, withdraws its forces from Gaza and releases hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including top militants. It said late on Monday that it has rejected a recent proposal that fell short of those demands — which, if fulfilled, would allow it to claim an extremely costly victory.
Netanyahu said in a statement that the announcement “proved clearly that Hamas is not interested in continuing negotiations toward a deal and served as unfortunate testimony to the damage of the Security Council decision.”
“Israel will not surrender to Hamas' delusional demands and will continue to act to achieve all the goals of the war: releasing all the hostages, destroying Hamas' military and governing capabilities and ensuring that Gaza will never again be a threat to Israel.”
The war has killed over 32,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally but says women and children make up about two-thirds of those killed. The fighting has left much of the Gaza Strip in ruins, displaced most its residents and driven a third of its population of 2.3 million to the brink of famine.
An Israeli strike late Monday on a residential building in Rafah where three displaced families were sheltering killed at least 16 people, including nine children and four women, according to hospital records and relatives of the deceased. An Associated Press reporter saw the bodies arrive at a hospital. On Monday, the Security Council finally managed to pass a resolution calling for a cease-fire as the United States abstained instead of vetoing the measure, angering Israel in a major escalation of tensions between the two close allies. The resolution calls for the release of all hostages held in Gaza but did not condition the cease-fire on it.
The United States, Qatar and Egypt have spent several weeks trying to negotiate another ceasefire and hostage release, but those efforts appeared to have stalled. Hamas said late Monday that Israel has not responded to its core demands of a “comprehensive ceasefire, an (Israeli) withdrawal from the Strip, the return of displaced people and a real prisoner exchange.”
Majed Al Ansari, a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry of Qatar, which is currently hosting the talks, told reporters that the negotiations were still ongoing, without providing details. Netanyahu has vowed to resume Israel's offensive after any hostage release and keep fighting until Hamas is destroyed. But he has provided few details about what would follow any such victory and has largely rejected a postwar vision outlined by the US.
That approach has brought him into increasingly open conflict with President Joe Biden's administration, which has expressed mounting concern over civilian casualties while supplying Israel with crucial military aid and backing Israel's aim of destroying Hamas. The US had vetoed previous UN resolutions calling for a ceasefire.
The White House has urged Israel not to undertake a major ground operation in Rafah, warning that it could cause a humanitarian catastrophe. The administration was set to brief visiting Israeli officials on an alternative approach, but Netanyahu called off their visit in response to the US abstention at the UN.