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Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to resume Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, in his most explicit pledge yet to reject a lasting ceasefire as Donald Trump said that Palestinians could be resettled away from the enclave.
Israel and the Palestinian militant group agreed an initial truce last month that still has several more weeks to run, while talks are due to begin next week on a full halt to the war and the return of dozens of remaining Israeli hostages.
“We can’t leave Hamas there [in Gaza], because Hamas will continue the battle to destroy Israel . . . you can’t talk about peace . . . if this toxic murderous organisation is left standing,” the Israeli prime minister said at a White House press conference on Tuesday alongside the US president.
Netanyahu has previously said that Israel remains committed to its stated goals from the Gaza war, including “total victory” over Hamas.
His latest vow came as Trump caused an international firestorm by saying that the US would “take over” the Gaza Strip and that Palestinians should permanently leave the shattered coastal enclave.
Netanyahu, smiling throughout the joint appearance, lauded the US leader for his “outside-the-box” thinking over the future of the Palestinian territory, describing it as a move that could “change history”.
Arab states including Saudi Arabia have pushed back against the idea, although Netanyahu said he believed that neither the transfer of nearly 2mn Palestinians out of Gaza nor the resumption of fighting against Hamas would necessarily undermine prospects for a deal to normalise relations with Riyadh.
Likening Hamas to the Nazi regime and military at the end of the second world war, Netanyahu said that if “you want a different future you [have got to] knock out the people who want to destroy you and destroy peace . . . That will usher in the peace with Saudi Arabia and others.”
Saudi officials have made the end of the Gaza war, along with a future pathway for Palestinian statehood in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, a precondition for any normalisation deal with Israel.
Trump said in the press conference that his administration was “discussing” the option of Israel annexing the West Bank, but had not yet reached a position on that.
“We’ll probably be making an announcement on that specific topic over the next four weeks,” Trump added.
The US-brokered Gaza ceasefire deal agreed last month called for an initial 42-day truce to include the gradual release of 33 Israelis taken hostage during Hamas’s October 7 2023 attack that triggered the conflict, while nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners are also due to be released from Israeli jails.
In the past fortnight 13 Israelis and five Thai nationals have been freed from captivity in Gaza, with another round of hostage-for-prisoner releases due on Saturday.
A second stage of the ceasefire, which still needs to be negotiated in detail, would include the release of dozens of remaining Israeli hostages in return for a permanent halt to the war — a prospect that Netanyahu has again thrown into doubt.
Reactions within Israel to Trump’s remarks on Tuesday were overwhelmingly positive, especially from the country’s far right, who saw his comments as an endorsement of their long-held position of encouraging the “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians out of contested territories.
Former national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who resigned from the Netanyahu government last month in protest over the Gaza ceasefire, said in radio interviews that he would return if Trump’s plan was implemented.
“Donald, this looks like the start of a beautiful friendship,” the ultra-nationalist politician wrote in English on X.
Gideon Sa’ar, foreign minister, said in a speech to parliament on Wednesday that “Gaza was an experiment that failed” over the past seven decades.
“Every person with eyes in his head understands that Gaza in its present format has no future,” he added.
Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has threatened to “dismantle” Netanyahu’s ruling coalition if the war is not resumed at the end of the month, wrote on X to Trump in English: “Together, we will make the world great again.”
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