Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that he is unwilling to agree to any deal to end the war in Gaza, and that he is only open to a ‘partial’ ceasefire deal that would guarantee the return of Israeli captives held in Gaza.
“The goal is to return the kidnapped and uproot the Hamas regime in Gaza,” Netanyahu said in an interview with Channel 14. “The intense phase of the fighting against Hamas is about to end… it doesn’t mean that the war is about to end, but the war in its intense phase is about to end in Rafah,” he added.
American President Joe Biden announced a ceasefire proposal last month that would see to a six-week pause to the war and the release of Israeli captives in Gaza, and Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons.
During the six-week proposed ceasefire, the two parties would have to negotiate an agreement, leading to a permanent ceasefire.
Despite US officials claiming that the deal had the assent of the Israeli leadership, no one has endorsed it and public statements from Tel Aviv still emphasize that the plan is to keep fighting until “Hamas is destroyed.”
After Netanyahu’s interview aired on Sunday, Hamas claimed that “it is now clear to the world that Netanyahu is the one rejecting and obstructing the deal proposed in the Biden speech and the latest UN Security Council resolution, not Hamas… the ball is now in the court of the war criminal Netanyahu. The US administration must lift the cover of silence and bias and pressure Netanyahu and his government to end the aggression.”
According to CNN, Netanyahu later retracted his comments, where he seemed to dismiss the ceasefire proposal backed by the United States.