Benjamin Netanyahu blames Hamas for the lack of a truce: ‘Those who kill hostages do not want an agreement’

ANDIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu On Sunday, the Palestinian Authority again blamed Hamas for the lack of a truce agreement and accused it of failing to hold “real negotiations” since December, hours after the bodies of six hostages were found last night in Rafah, in southern Gaza.

“Those who kill hostages do not want a deal,” Netanyahu said in a recorded message. “We, for our part, will not let up.” The Israeli government is committed, and I am personally committed, to continue fighting for an agreement that will return all our hostages and guarantee our security and existence.“.

Shortly before, representatives of the hostages’ families had asked him to appear publicly and his own Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, had urged him to revoke the decision to keep Israeli troops on the Gaza border with Egypt.

Even after the US updated the draft agreement on August 16, we agreed and Hamas refused again

Netanyahu said that three months ago, on May 27, Israel agrees to hostage release deal with full US backingbut Hamas refused.

“Even after the United States updated the draft agreement on August 16, we agreed and Hamas refused again,” he added.

However, Hamas accuses Netanyahu of having recently added new demandssuch as the presence of Israeli troops in the Philadelphia corridor – on the border between Gaza and Egypt – and in the Netzarim corridor, an artificial strip created in the war that divides Gaza from north to south.

“Any agreement must include a permanent ceasefire“a complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the freedom of return of residents to their areas, aid and reconstruction, and a serious exchange agreement (of hostages for prisoners),” Hamas recalled on August 25 after another round of fruitless negotiations.

In recent months, 8 hostages have been rescued alive through military operations, compared to the 105 captives released in the only truce agreement, reached in November, on September 1st he reproached Netanyahu for the Hostage Families Forum.

The army should advance two kilometers inland from the current border and clear everything in its path. This is territory that will never return to the hands of the inhabitants of Gaza.

For his part, the ultra-colonial Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, expressed his rejection of any “surrender agreement” today on X and said that it was time to “reduce the Strip.”

“The army should advance two kilometers inland from the current border and clear everything in its path. This is a territory that will never return to the hands of the inhabitants of Gaza,” the minister said in X.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid has called on
the head of the Histadrut labor federation to call a general strike in the face of the inaction of “Netanyahu and his cabinet of death.” Relatives of the hostages have announced protests across the country today and throughout the week.

EFE