Netanyahu rejects proposed ceasefire terms, slams 'delusional' Hamas demands
Israeli PM vows to press ahead with fight against Hamas until 'absolute victory'
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday rejected Hamas's terms for a ceasefire and hostage-release agreement, calling them "delusional," a position that complicates efforts to strike a deal between the sides.
Netanyahu vowed to press ahead with Israel's four-month-long war in the Gaza Strip against the militant group Hamas until achieving "absolute victory."
The Israeli leader made the comments shortly after meeting U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has been travelling the region in hopes of securing a ceasefire agreement.
"Surrendering to Hamas's delusional demands that we heard now not only won't lead to freeing the captives, it will just invite another massacre," Netanyahu said during a nationally televised evening news conference.
"We are on the way to an absolute victory," Netanyahu said, adding that the operation would last months, not years. "There is no other solution."
Hamas can't keep control: PM
Netanyahu ruled out any arrangement that leaves Hamas in full or partial control of Gaza. He also said that Israel is the "only power" capable of guaranteeing security in the long term.
Blinken said on Wednesday that he believes a ceasefire and hostage-release agreement between Israel and Hamas was still possible, despite the two sides being far apart on the central terms for a deal.
"It's not flipping a light switch. It's not yes or no," he said.
Hamas laid out a detailed, three-phase plan to unfold over four and a half months, responding to a proposal drawn up by the United States, Israel, Qatar and Egypt. The plan 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's governing and military abilities one of its wartime objectives, and the group's proposal would effectively leave it in power in Gaza and allow it to rebuild its military capabilities.
U.S. President Joe Biden said Hamas's demands are "a little over the top" but that negotiations will continue.
The deadliest round of fighting in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has levelled entire neighbourhoods and driven the vast majority of Gaza's population from their homes. More than 27,000 Palestinians have been killed, Gaza's Health Ministry says.
Iran-backed militant groups across the region have conducted attacks — mostly on U.S. and Israeli targets — in solidarity with the Palestinians, drawing reprisals as the risk of a wider conflict grows.
Israel remains deeply shaken by the Oct. 7 attack in which Hamas-led militants burst through the country's vaunted defences and rampaged across southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting some 250, about half of whom remain in captivity in Gaza, according to Israeli officials.
Blinken is trying to advance the ceasefire 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.
Ceaseless war, endless stress
There is little talk of grand diplomatic bargains in Gaza, where Palestinians yearn for an end to fighting that has upended every aspect of their lives.
"We pray to God that it stops," said Ghazi Abu Issa, who fled his home and sought shelter in the central town of Deir al-Balah. "There is no water, electricity, food or bathrooms."
Those living in tents have been drenched by winter rains and flooding.
New mothers struggle to get baby formula and diapers. Some have resorted to feeding solid food to babies younger than six months old despite the health risks it poses.
Blinken noted the devastation inflicted on Gaza civilians, saying that "the daily toll that [Israel's] military operations continue to take on innocent civilians remains too high."
The 27,707 Palestinians killed include 123 bodies brought to hospitals in just the last 24 hours, Gaza's Health Ministry said on Wednesday, adding that at least 11,000 wounded people need to be urgently evacuated from the territory.
The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures but says most of the dead have been women and children.
Israel has ordered Palestinians to evacuate areas that make up two-thirds of the tiny coastal territory. Most of the displaced are packed into the southern town of Rafah near the border with Egypt, where many are living in squalid tent camps and overflowing shelters run by the United Nations.
Hamas has continued to put up stiff resistance across the territory, and its police force has returned to the streets in places where Israeli troops have pulled back. Hamas is still holding more than 130 hostages, but about 30 of them are believed to be dead, with the vast majority killed on Oct. 7.