Netanyahu says there can be no permanent ceasefire until Hamas is destroyed

Hours after the president of the United States, Joe Biden, presented as an Israeli proposal on the table a phased plan to definitively end the war in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed this Saturday that he will never accept a permanent ceasefire – planned in the second phase – before its conditions are met, which – he insisted – “have not changed”: “The destruction of the military and government capabilities of Hamas, the release of all hostages and ensure that Gaza no longer represents a threat to Israel.” Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that calls for an end to the war in exchange for handing over all Israeli hostages and to which Biden asked for a yes to the document, has received the plan “positively,” although it demands an “explicit commitment” from Israel to its compliance to the end. The roadmap unveiled by Biden leaves a key question in the air: who will govern the Strip after the war.

Hamas received the proposal from another of the mediators, Qatar, on Friday night. Shortly after, he issued a statement in which he assessed Biden’s speech “positively” and “reaffirmed his willingness to positively and constructively deal with any proposal that is based on a permanent ceasefire, total withdrawal [de las fuerzas israelíes] of Gaza, reconstruction, the return of the displaced to all their places and a serious agreement on the exchange of prisoners.” As long as, he adds, Israel “explicitly declares its commitment” in this regard.

The first phase of the “road map” – as Biden called it – consists of a truce of at least six weeks during which Hamas would hand over part of the hostages, both alive (women, elderly, sick and wounded) and dead, and Israel would release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, allow displaced people in southern Gaza to return to see the state of their homes in the devastated north, withdraw its troops from populated areas and allow 600 trucks of humanitarian aid to enter daily. During that period, which can be extended, the parties would negotiate a second phase, which would lead – said Biden, citing the Israeli proposal – to a “permanent ceasefire.”

Hamas insists on Israel’s “explicit commitment” to compliance because it fears handing over hostages – one of its few assets given the inequality of forces with Israel – without the certainty that the end of the road will be a definitive cessation of hostilities. Biden himself pointed out in his appearance the need to “negotiate several details” in order to move from the first to the second phase.

Netanyahu’s office, which does not usually speak out during the sabbatical, has issued two statements. In the first, more ambiguous and shortly after the announcement of the plan, he confirmed that the negotiating team had the power to “present a plan” that would allow the release of all the hostages (129, around a third dead), but he insisted in that “the war will not end” until all its objectives are achieved, among them “the destruction of the military and governmental capabilities of Hamas.”

Netanyahu has been saying for months that compliance with this requires the offensive in Rafah, south of the Strip, which began last month. Biden has implicitly contradicted this in his speech by pointing out that the offer does not pose any “additional risk” to the security of Israelis because the army has “destroyed Hamas forces for eight months” and they no longer have the capacity to “carry out out another October 7”, in reference to the attack in which he killed almost 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages and triggered the invasion.

“Impossible”

In the second statement, at noon this Saturday, Netanyahu insists that his conditions “to end the war have not changed: the destruction of Hamas’s military and government capabilities, the release of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer represents a threat to Israel.” “Under the proposal, Israel will continue to insist that these conditions be met before a permanent ceasefire is established. The idea that Israel will agree to a permanent ceasefire before these conditions are met is impossible,” the note added. The ambiguity over the meaning of two of Netanyahu’s mantras – the “destruction of the capabilities” of Hamas and that “it does not constitute a danger again” – opens the door for the talks to advance and for him to present to public opinion and his ultranationalist partners the end of the war as a victory.

In his speech at the White House, Biden actually sent another implicit message to Netanyahu. In theory, he was addressing Israelis in general, but he used the prime minister’s fetish formula to justify the need to continue the war as long as necessary. “We cannot waste this moment. “An indefinite war in pursuit of an unnamed notion of ‘total victory’ will only bog Israel down in Gaza, depleting economic, military and human resources, and deepening Israel’s isolation in the world,” he noted.

Last Wednesday, in fact, Tzaji Hanegbi, Israel’s National Security Advisor and Netanyahu’s confidant, estimated that the war in Gaza “will be long” and will continue at least throughout this year, “to deepen the achievements” and eliminate “the government and military capabilities of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.”

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