Israel pledged to keep up its military pressure on Hamas as its negotiators joined hostage talks in Cairo and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with CIA Director William Burns on Wednesday.
“We will continue to keep up the military pressure on Hamas,” Israel government spokesperson Avi Hyman told reporters in Jerusalem.
“We know from the last hostage release that we needed both the military pressure and the diplomatic channel” to successfully reach a deal, he said, referring to the November agreement that saw the release of 105 hostages.
“Ultimately, Hamas was brought down to their knees begging… for a bit of respite, for a break in the fighting” and agreed to release captives, Hyman said.
“We are continuing on our mission in Rafah as part of the war aims because the last four battalions of Hamas are there. We will destroy them.
“But certainly, that pressure is up on Hamas. We can see that they feel it,” he said.
Hyman spoke one day after Israel seized the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing into Egypt, and as the IDF bombed Hamas targets in eastern Rafah.
Hamas's proposals to ending the war
Israel has hoped that the Rafah operation would press Hamas to show flexibility in talks, where it has insisted on trading a hostage deal for a permanent ceasefire.
Netanyahu has insisted that the IDF must be allowed to finish its military operation to oust Hamas from Gaza.
Israel had put forward a three-phased proposal that would pause the war for some 120 days, and allow for all the remaining 132 captives to be freed, starting with 33 hostages in the first 40 days.
Hamas put forward a counter-proposal, one that – significantly – did not promise to deliver 33 live hostages in the first phase, explaining that they could be dead or alive.
Their proposal also delays the release of the captives and the pace of their release.
Burns met with Netanyahu in Israel on Wednesday, in an attempt to narrow the gaps. He also spoke with Mossad Chief David Barnea.
Separately, an Israeli team participated in indirect talks in Cairo, talks that also included a Hamas delegation and officials from the mediating countries Egypt and Qatar.