The Hamas terror group rejected the Israeli proposal for a hostage release deal, the Saudi newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported on Thursday morning.
Sources in the terrorist organization claim that the decision was reached due to the realization that the Israeli proposal is fundamentally different from the one presented by US President Joe Biden.
A memo that was distributed yesterday to Palestinian terrorist organizations and obtained by Asharq Al-Awsat claims that the proposal “does not guarantee a permanent ceasefire, the occupation forces will remain in Gaza and when they receive the hostages, they will resume the destruction against our people.”
After Biden presented an outline for a hostage release/ceasefire deal on Friday [deliberately timed for after the start of Shabbos in Israel], National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said that “the ball is now in Hamas’ court.”
He added that the White House “agrees with the Prime Minister of Israel that Israel has the right to destroy the capabilities of Hamas. But now is the time to move to the next stage, to start the first stage of freeing some of the hostages and start discussing the second stage.”
He also claimed that “this is an Israeli proposal and President Biden described it precisely.”
However, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Monday at a Foreign Affairs and Security Committee meeting: “I am not prepared to end the war. Despite what Biden said, it has not yet been agreed how many hostages will be released in the first phase. We can stop the fighting for 42 days in order to bring back the hostages but we cannot stop the war. The Iranians and all our enemies are looking at us, wanting to see if we surrender.”
“There are many more details in the deal and the war will not end without achieving all the objectives. Don’t pay attention to the publications, there are a lot of fake report circulating. We will not concede on absolute victory.”
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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5 Responses
I don’t understand Netanyahu. He wants them to agree to a deal when he is saying to them outright that our ultimate goal is to finish them off.
Don’t say it, don’t be an idiot, agree to end the war, get our hostages out, and then go back and finish them off.
How do you want them to agree to a deal when you keep saying that you will kill them.
He is a clever man, but in this case he is an idiot. He is worried about showing weakness. Who cares what you’re showing, you need to care about what you’re doing!!
Good, now we can completely destroy them. No more negotiations.
Hamas has no need to negotiate. Every time they reject a deal they are offered a better one.
They say the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Here’s a case in point. They could’ve gotten 42 day ceasefire to regroup and rearm all it costed was a few hostages. This war is never ending anyway no matter what anyone says. It’s just ceasefires till the next ceasefire.
Rif-Netanyahu’s goal is to finish the war and get all of the hostages out. If only one of those goals are there, he won’t agree to the deal. That’s why he wasn’t ready to agree to the deal and to be quite frank, this wasn’t really a deal (nor the other proposals). It’s more like a one sided agreement, give in to Hamas what they want and agree to their demands and maybe we’ll get what we want. Netanyahu isn’t willing to give in that much to Hamas and I don’t blame him.