- author, Hugo Bacega
- role, Middle East Correspondent
-
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that there will be no permanent ceasefire in Gaza until Hamas’ military and governing power is destroyed and all hostages are released.
His comments came after US President Joe Biden announced that Israel had proposed a three-phase plan to Hamas aimed at achieving a permanent ceasefire.
A senior Hamas politician told the BBC that if Israel “agreed with this agreement, Hamas would be in favor”.
The talks come as fighting in Rafah continues, with reports of Israeli airstrikes on the city on Egypt’s border with Gaza on Saturday.
Even if Biden pressures both Israel and Hamas to accept the plan, there is no guarantee a deal will be reached.
In a statement Saturday, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office said Israel’s “conditions for ending the war have not changed.”
The resolution listed these as “the destruction of Hamas’ military and governing capabilities, the release of all hostages, and guarantees that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel.”
The statement added that Israel “continues to insist that these conditions be met” before agreeing to a permanent ceasefire, stressing that no agreement can be concluded unless the conditions are met.
Biden said Friday that the plan was a comprehensive Israeli proposal that paves the way for a permanent ceasefire.
The first phase would include a complete and total ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from populated areas, and the exchange of some of the hostages for Palestinian prisoners.
All remaining hostages, including male soldiers, will then be returned.
Biden said the final phase would see the return of the bodies of the Israeli hostages who died and a “massive recovery plan” to rebuild homes, schools and hospitals with U.S. and international help.
A complete end to the conflict is Hamas’ main demand for any agreement to negotiate.
After Netanyahu restated the war aims, a Hamas spokesman said Hamas would back the plan if Israel did.
Bassem Naim, a Qatar-based Hamas politburo member, told the BBC World Service’s NewsHour programme that Hamas welcomed the plan but the next steps were up to Israel.
In response to Netanyahu’s remarks, he noted that while Israel’s objectives may not have changed, they have not been achieved either.
“If he continues to do so, it will not find anything but the will of all Palestinians to resist the occupation,” Naim said.
The proposal put forward by Biden would likely give both Israel and Hamas an opportunity to say their demands have been met.
For Hamas, this clearly paves the way for a permanent ceasefire, which has been the group’s main demand in any agreement. It wants guarantees that Israeli forces will not return to Gaza after the hostages are released, and this proposal does just that.
This would undoubtedly meet with opposition within Israel.
Biden sought to address those concerns, saying Hamas is so weakened that it does not have the capacity to launch another large-scale attack against Israel.
But he acknowledged that not all Israelis would accept the deal and urged the government to resist pressure.
Those likely to oppose the plan would be far-right members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, who have previously warned they would walk away if a deal was reached to end the war before destroying Hamas, which could spell the end of Netanyahu’s government.
But Yair Lapid, one of Israel’s most influential opposition politicians, has pledged to support Netanyahu if he supports the ceasefire.
In a social media post, Lapid told the Israeli prime minister that “there is a safety net for hostage deals” if his far-right allies, such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, leave the government.
The statement from Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office appeared vague enough to allow him to claim his objective had been achieved.
Interestingly, there is no mention of his repeated statement that the Israeli military’s goal in Gaza is “total victory.”
This omission may allow Prime Minister Netanyahu to deny criticism that the agreement represents a major concession to Hamas.
Israel has claimed operational control over its entire border with Egypt in recent weeks and has stepped up attacks on the main city of Rafah.
US, Israeli and Egyptian officials are due to meet in Cairo on Sunday to discuss reopening the Rafah crossing, according to Egyptian media reports.
The flow of aid into Gaza has been restricted since Israeli forces seized control of the Strip as part of an offensive to secure Gaza’s southern border and closed the border in early May.
More than 36,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the conflict began, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.
The war began in October when Hamas militants launched unprecedented attacks on Israel, killing about 1,200 people and forcing 252 hostages back to Gaza.
