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Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that the war in Gaza would not end regardless of whether a ceasefire-for-hostage deal is reached with Hamas, as mediators waited for an official response from the militant group that had been mooted for the past week.
“Israel will under no circumstances agree to the end of the war as part of an agreement to release our hostages,” the prime minister’s office said in a rare statement over the Jewish Sabbath.
“The [Israel Defense Forces] will enter Rafah and will destroy the remaining Hamas battalions in it — regardless of whether there is a temporary pause in the fighting to free our hostages or not,” the statement added, referring to a long-threatened offensive into Gaza’s southernmost city and last Hamas stronghold.
Reports in various Arab media outlets over the weekend indicated that Hamas was set to respond favourably to a proposed agreement, brokered by Egypt, Qatar and the US. This deal would halt the fighting in Gaza for an initial six weeks in return for the release of 33 Israeli hostages seized during the militant group’s October 7 attack on Israel that triggered the war.
The deal being discussed in Cairo would also see the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, the further withdrawal of the IDF from the shattered coastal enclave and the return of masses of displaced Palestinians to their homes in north Gaza.
Yet the key sticking point remains Hamas’s demand for a full halt to the conflict and the Israeli government’s unwillingness to stop its military campaign short of “total victory”, as Netanyahu has repeatedly promised.
Mediators have been trying to bridge the gap through a multiphase deal that would work towards the “restoration of a sustainable calm” — a formulation that one Israeli official last week termed “creative framing” aimed at allowing a hostage deal to go ahead.
Senior US officials have lauded Israel for showing flexibility in this most recent round of talks, and have described the deal on offer as “extraordinarily generous” for Hamas.
In a sign of the increased urgency and pressure on both parties, the US dispatched CIA chief Bill Burns to Egypt over the weekend to ramp up efforts to finalise a deal.
Netanyahu’s office has also tried to further shift blame on to Hamas, saying on Saturday that the militant group had “not conceded its demand to end the war and by so doing is scuttling the possibility of reaching an agreement”. Israel refrained from sending a negotiation team back to Cairo later in the day for further talks, insisting that it would first wait for Hamas’s response.
Netanyahu is under huge pressure from his far-right political allies, who have openly threatened to bring down his governing coalition if the proposal is accepted.
“No to a reckless deal, yes to Rafah,” national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote on X. “The Prime Minister knows very well what the price is for not fulfilling these obligations.”
Opposition leaders and families of the hostages criticised Netanyahu for trying to wreck the potential deal by influencing Hamas’s decision ahead of time, and for playing politics with the fate of the 132 Israelis still held in Gaza.
Benny Gantz, a centrist minister in the war cabinet and Netanyahu’s main political rival, urged the Israeli leader to “keep his cool and not to become hysterical for political reasons”.
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