The intensive part of Israel’s warfare towards Hamas is “about to finish,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated in a Sunday evening interview on Israeli tv, though he emphasised that didn’t imply the battle was coming to an in depth.
After the operation in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost metropolis and the newest focus of Israel’s floor offensive, the prime minister stated, Israel would preserve “mowing the garden” — a time period lengthy utilized in Israeli safety circles to indicate using pressure geared toward curbing the regrowth of militant organizations.
Mr. Netanyahu’s remarks have been the newest suggestion by senior Israeli officers that the warfare might quickly enter a interval of change.
Israel’s protection minister, Yoav Gallant, was in Washington for conferences with Biden administration officers, which he stated would come with dialogue of “the transition to ‘Section C’ in Gaza.”
Whereas Israel’s navy says it’s near dismantling or critically degrading Hamas’s navy infrastructure, the federal government has not proposed any clear plan for the administration of Gaza after the warfare.
Mr. Netanyahu steered within the interview {that a} postwar civilian administration would contain native Palestinians, hopefully with the assistance of average Arab nations. The Israeli navy must keep general safety management of the enclave, he stated.
The prime minister continued to rule out a proposal that has been pushed by the Biden administration: handing over Gaza to the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, which workouts restricted self-rule in components of the occupied West Financial institution.
To get to the “day after Hamas,” Mr. Netanyahu stated, “first you must remove Hamas” — reiterating his longstanding place that the armed group be absolutely eradicated, a objective that many consultants say is unattainable.
The prime minister’s remarks got here in a 44-minute interview he granted to “The Patriots,” a populist and sometimes divisive nightly speak present on Channel 14, a right-wing Israeli tv station that caters to Mr. Netanyahu’s voter base.
Mr. Netanyahu has hardly ever been interviewed in Hebrew for an Israeli viewers because the begin of the warfare. He has confronted criticism domestically for granting frequent interviews to American networks whereas participating with Israelis primarily via sporadic televised statements and information conferences or by way of video clips.
Mr. Netanyahu additionally addressed the stalled cease-fire negotiations throughout the interview, suggesting at one level that he was prepared to strike a “partial” deal for the return of solely among the 120 hostages being held in Gaza — a press release that his workplace rapidly walked again.
The prime minister stated he was able to comply with a brief truce and the discharge of among the hostages, then subsequently resuming the warfare. That proposition appeared to contradict an Israeli proposal that was authorized final month by Mr. Netanyahu and his warfare cupboard for a phased deal that might launch all of the hostages and usher in a everlasting cease-fire — a proposal that was endorsed by President Biden and the United Nations Safety Council.
However at one other level in Sunday’s interview, Mr. Netanyahu stated he was dedicated to bringing again all of the remaining hostages, at the least a 3rd of whom Israel has stated have died in captivity.
In a short assertion issued after the interview, Mr. Netanyahu’s workplace stated it was Hamas that opposed a deal, not Israel, including: “Prime Minister Netanyahu has made it clear that we’ll not go away Gaza till we return all 120 of our hostages, residing and deceased.”
The Hostages and Lacking Individuals Households Discussion board, which advocates for the hostages, condemned Mr. Netanyahu’s feedback within the interview, saying that failing to advance the cease-fire proposal “abandons 120 hostages and violates the state’s ethical obligation to its residents.”
“The households of the hostages is not going to enable the federal government and its chief to again away from their elementary commitments to our family members’ destiny,” the group stated in a press release. “The accountability and responsibility to return all hostages lies with the prime minister.”
Johnatan Reiss and Adam Rasgon contributed reporting.
