Netanyahu rejects terms for deal on cease-fire, release of hostages
JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday rejected Hamas' terms for a cease-fire and hostage-release agreement, vowing to continue the war until “absolute victory” and dismissing any arrangement that leaves the militant group in full or partial control of Gaza.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was in the region to try to broker a cease-fire deal, said an agreement between the sides was still possible.
But Netanyahu's remarks also underscored how wide the chasm between Israel and Hamas remains as the war enters its fifth month.
Netanyahu said military pressure was the best way to free the roughly 100 hostages held in captivity in the Gaza Strip, where they were taken after Hamas' cross-border rampage into southern Israel on Oct. 7, which sparked the war.
The prime minister was responding to a detailed, threephase plan by Hamas that would unfold over 4 1⁄2 months. The plan, which came as a response to a proposal drawn up by the United States, Israel, Qatar and Egypt, stipulates that all hostages would be released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, including senior militants, and an end to the war.
Israel has made destroying Hamas' governing and military abilities one of its wartime objectives, and Hamas' proposal would effectively leave it in power in Gaza and allow it to rebuild its military capabilities.
“Surrendering to Hamas' delusional demands that we heard now not only won't lead to freeing the captives, it will just invite another massacre,” Netanyahu said in a nationally televised evening news conference. Following Netanyahu's remarks, Hamas official Osama Hamdan said a delegation would travel to Cairo for more talks, a sign that the negotiations would continue. And Blinken indicated that a deal could still move forward.
Blinken, who was in the region for the fifth time since the war erupted, is trying to advance the cease-fire talks while pushing for a larger postwar settlement in which Saudi Arabia would normalize relations with Israel in return for a “clear, credible, time-bound path to the establishment of a Palestinian state.”
But the increasingly unpopular Netanyahu is opposed to Palestinian statehood, and his hawkish governing coalition could collapse if he is seen as making too many concessions.
Hamas' response to the cease-fire proposal was published in Lebanon's Al-Akhbar newspaper, which is close to the powerful Hezbollah militant group.
In the first 45-day phase, Hamas would release all remaining women and children, as well as older and sick men, in exchange for an unspecified number of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Israel would also withdraw from populated areas, cease aerial operations, allow far more aid to enter and permit Palestinians to return to their homes, including in devastated northern Gaza.
The second phase, to be negotiated during the first, would include the release of all remaining hostages, mostly soldiers, in exchange for all Palestinian detainees over the age of 50, including senior militants. Israel would release an additional 1,500 prisoners, 500 of whom would be specified by Hamas, and complete its withdrawal from Gaza.
In the third phase, the sides would exchange the remains of hostages and prisoners. At the news conference where he responded to Hamas' demands, Netanyahu said the Israeli military had achieved many of the goals it set out and that victory was “a matter of months” away.
He said forces had dismantled 18 out of Hamas' 24 battalions, destroyed tunnels and killed militants, and that military pressure on Hamas was the best way to bring about the release of the hostages. He said preparations were underway for the military to move into the southern Gaza border town of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have crammed to flee the fighting.
“We are on the way to an absolute victory,” Netanyahu said. “There is no other solution.”
Hamas has continued to put up stiff resistance across the territory.
Netanyahu ruled out any arrangement that leaves Hamas in control of any part of Gaza.