Standing firm against Hamas demands is the only way to ensure the release of all the remaining 120 hostages, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday, amid a bitter, stiff debate with security officials over the best way forward for a hostage deal.
“Hamas is under increased stress,” Netanyahu said during a memorial ceremony for the 2014 Gaza War, known as Operation Protective Edge.
This is because “we are inflicting damage, assassinating its senior commanders [and] eliminating [i.e. killing] thousands of terrorists,” he explained.
“It is stressed because we have stood firm on our just demands despite all the pressures” that are on us not to do so, the prime minister said.
“This is exactly the time to further increase the pressure [on Hamas], to bring home all the hostages – the living and the dead alike – and to achieve all the goals of the war,” he said.
“We will increase the pressure on Hamas and we will bring them all back,” Netanyahu said. This would include those kidnapped on October 7 as well as those who were taken a decade ago.
He was referring to two Israeli citizens believed to be suffering from emotional illnesses, Avera Mengistu and Hisham Al-Sayed, who wandered into Gaza in 2014 and 2015 and have been held there since.
Netanyahu also spoke of two IDF soldiers believed to have been killed in the 2014 Gaza war and whose bodies have been held since then in Gaza: Lt. Hadar Goldin and St.-Sgt. Oron Shaul.
The prime minister was heckled as he spoke, as were Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and President Isaac Herzog, who walked off the stage in response, but then returned and finished his speech.
Netanyahu under attack
Netanyahu in particular has been under increased public attack by those who believed he should accept any terms necessary to bring the hostages home. He has also been accused of caving in to the demands of his coalition partners out of a desire to prevent the collapse of his government at the expense of the hostages’ lives.
Hostage negotiations led by mediating countries Egypt and Qatar, which had appeared to hit a dead end during the winter, resumed in earnest after US President Joe Biden unveiled a three-phase proposal for a deal on May 31.
Biden has said that both Israel and Hamas have agreed to the framework of the deal. The US led a highly publicized diplomatic blitz to close the deal last week, and talks are ongoing this week, with Israel sending a delegation.
Disagreements between Netanyahu and security officials over some of the issues in the deal have spilled out into the media with some security officials blaming him for the absence of a deal, explaining that if he struck a different tone, Israel could be prepared to welcome hostages already next week.
The dispute, particularly between Netanyahu and Gallant, was clear in the public statements that they made during Tuesday evening’s memorial ceremony before the security cabinet met to discuss a hostage deal.
Gallant took to the stage and underscored Netanyahu’s sentiments that Hamas was near defeat.
“We are on the brink of a change that will lead to the collapse of Hamas – the determined action of the IDF fighters and security forces brought us towards a determinative point,” he said.
Persistent military pressure has created “a limited window of opportunity to return the hostages home.”
He warned, however, that “this is a fleeting opportunity.”
There is a “principled, moral and national duty” to free the hostages and return them to Israel, he said.
Gallant alluded to the fact that Israel could afford to make military concessions to achieve this deal.
Such a deal, he said, would not prevent them from acting against any emerging threats, which the IDF has the ability to do.
“The conditions are ripe for a deal,” Gallant said, adding that it is “our duty” to seize this chance.
In Washington, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller underscored that negotiations were continuing.
“The ceasefire negotiations have continued, and despite various public statements that are made by both sides on this conflict from time to time, what we have actually seen in the negotiations [are a] pushing forward to try to get a deal,” Miller said.
“What we have seen has made us believe we can get to a deal, which, of course, does not mean that we will,” the spokesman said. “We’re going to continue to try to push for one.”