AgenPress – Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel is ready to suspend fighting in Gaza for a partial agreement in exchange for the return of a certain number of hostages but that it will not end the war until Hamas is destroyed, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said that it is the Islamist movement that rejects the truce agreement and not Israel.
Prime Minister “Netanyahu has made it clear that we will not leave” the Palestinian enclave “until we have brought back all 120 hostages, dead or alive”, we read in a note released late yesterday evening. “Hamas is the one who opposes the agreement, not Israel,” the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office emphasizes.
Netanyahu also said the intense phase of fighting in the Gaza Strip was winding down as Israel increasingly prepares for a potential open conflict with Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which has stepped up its cross-border attacks on Israel.
Netanyahu spoke on the right-wing Channel 14 in his first interview with a Hebrew-language channel since the October 7 Hamas terror attack.
Asked whether he was willing to reach an agreement with Hamas once the high-intensity phase of the conflict is over that would constitute a commitment to ending the war, Netanyahu said: “No. I am not willing to end the war and leave Hamas standing. I’m ready to make a partial deal, it’s no secret, that would give us some people back.”
“But we are obliged to continue fighting after a pause to achieve our goal of destroying Hamas,” he told the TV channel’s “The Patriots” program. “I’m not willing to give this up.”
