Israel’s opposition leader has urged Benjamin Netanyahu to heed Joe Biden’s call for a Gaza truce under which Hamas would free hostages, Ednews reports.
“The Israeli government cannot ignore President Biden’s significant speech. There is a deal on the table and it needs to be done,” Yair Lapid wrote in a post on X.
“I remind Netanyahu that he has a security network from us for the hostage deal if Ben-Gvir and Smotrich leave the government.”
The deal offers a permanent ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in return for the release of all hostages and the long-term reconstruction of the shattered coastal strip.
Although the terms of the new deal were set out by Biden, he repeatedly described it as an Israeli proposal. However, the US president made clear he was aware there would be considerable resistance to it from the Israeli right, including the hard-right members of the governing coalition.
****14:20
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has insisted on Hamas’s destruction and said Israel’s conditions for ending the war in Gaza remain unchanged, Ednews reports via The Guardian.
It came a day after Joe Biden said Israel was offering a new roadmap towards a full ceasefire in Gaza.
The US president said Israel’s three-stage offer would begin with a six-week phase that would see Israeli forces withdraw from all populated areas of Gaza.
It would also see the “release of a number of hostages, including women, the elderly, the wounded, in exchange for (the) release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners,” Biden said.
In a statement issued on Saturday, Netanyahu described the commitment to a permanent ceasefire before Hamas military and government capacity is destroyed as a “non-starter”.
Netanyahu said:
Israel’s conditions for ending the war have not changed: the destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel.
Under the proposal, Israel will continue to insist these conditions are met before a permanent ceasefire is put in place. The notion that Israel will agree to a permanent ceasefire before these conditions are fulfilled is a non-starter.
