Netanyahu rejects Hamas’ demands

JERUSALEM (AP):

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday rejected Hamas’ terms for a ceasefire 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.

Netanyahu’s remarks, made as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in the region to try to broker a ceasefire deal, signalled that the painstaking diplomacy could be derailed. The comments 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 October 7, which sparked the war.

The prime minister was responding to a detailed, three-phase plan by Hamas that would unfold over four and a half 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.

Blinken, who was in the region for the fifth time since the war erupted, is trying to advance the ceasefire talks while pushing for a larger postwar settlement in which Saudi Arabia would normalise 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.