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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated on Sunday that an Israeli military operation in the southernmost city of Rafah in Gaza would be “delayed somewhat” if an agreement for a weeks-long peace between Israel and Hamas is struck. However, he asserted that complete victory in Gaza is “weeks away” once the incursion starts.
In an interview with Margaret Brennan for CBS News’s “Face the Nation,” Netanyahu stated that a deal is being worked on but gave no specifics.
According to Israeli media, negotiations on a temporary truce and the release of several hostages detained in Gaza, as well as Israeli-held Palestinian security inmates, were moving forward. According to several Israeli media sites that quoted anonymous officials, the war cabinet gave its implicit approval.
Expert-level talks got underway in Qatar on Sunday, according to a report from Egypt’s state-run Al Qahera TV, which quoted an Egyptian official stating that more talks in Cairo will be held to finalize the temporary truce and release.
Numerous sources have claimed that the plan calls for the initial phase of the 40 hostages held in Gaza—including women, children, female soldiers, elderly, and sick abductees—to be released during a roughly six-week ceasefire in hostilities.
It also calls for the “redeployment” of Israeli forces within Gaza, rather than their total removal as Hamas had previously asked, and the release by Israel of hundreds of Palestinian terror convicts.
According to reports, the plan would also allow Israel to return Palestinian women and children to the northern part of Gaza, which it has kept sealed off from the rest of the enclave and from which hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated during the war.
Sami In response to Netanyahu’s remarks, top Hamas figure Abu Zuhri stated that they raised questions about Israel’s readiness to negotiate a hostage agreement.
Abu Zuhri told Reuters that Netanyahu “seems unconcerned with reaching an agreement” and that he wishes “to pursue negotiation under bombardment and the bloodshed” of Palestinians in Gaza.
As all is going on, Israel is preparing to move its attack against the terror organization Hamas to Rafah, which is located near the Gaza-Egypt border and is home to more than half of the 2.3 million people who have fled the region.
Humanitarian organizations have issued dire warnings, citing Rafah as the primary entrance gateway for assistance, while the US and other countries have demanded that Israel refrain from injuring civilians.
According to Israel’s military and political authorities, the operation won’t start until non-combatants’ safety is guaranteed.
Netanyahu said he will call a cabinet meeting this week to finalize operational preparations for action in Rafah, including evacuating people.
“The intense part of the combat is weeks after we launch the Rafah offensive.
Not weeks,” Netanyahu stated to CBS. “Even if we can’t agree on anything, we’ll proceed. It must be done because complete triumph is our aim and is achievable.
According to him, Rafah is home to four of the six surviving Hamas units.
US affirms “basic contours” of hostage agreement agreed in Paris negotiations.
President Joe Biden was not briefed on the Rafah plan, according to US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, who stated on NBC Sunday morning, “We believe that this operation should not go forward until or unless we see [a plan to protect civilians].”
Representatives from Israel, the US, Egypt, and Qatar met in Paris late last week. Sullivan revealed to CNN on Sunday that they “came to an understanding among the four of them about what the basic contours of a hostage deal for a temporary ceasefire would look like.”
Any such agreement “is still under negotiation in terms of hammering out the details,” according to Sullivan. Hamas will eventually have to agree to free the captives. Therefore, Qatar and Egypt will need to conduct indirect talks with them,” he continued.
“That work is now being done. And we’re hoping that in the coming days, we can move this discussion to the point where a solid agreement has been reached.
In an interview with CBS, Netanyahu was questioned about the “growing distrust of you personally” held by the Biden White House and Congress.
“Isn’t it worth considering when your closest ally is telling you things like this and that you need to reconsider a strategy?” Brennan asked the PM a question.
“Well, first of all, you say there’s no confidence in me,” Netanyahu finally said in response to the comment. “Well, the Israeli public has confidence in me.”
However, the prime minister’s popularity has fallen sharply since October 7, and nearly every poll indicates that he would not be able to build a coalition if early elections were to be conducted.
The prime minister stated that he believes “the US agrees with us on the goal of destroying Hamas and the goal of releasing the hostages,” about the strategic disagreements between the US and Israel. It is up to us, myself, and Israel’s chosen government to decide how to proceed with it.
“Netanyahu went on, “A lot of things that we were initially told by the best of friends turned out to be false.” They declared, “You can’t enter Gaza City, you can’t go into the tunnels, it will be a terrible bloodbath, and you can’t enter the ground war without having enormous complications.” “It turned out that none of that was true,” he stated.
“The network of tunnels contains our warriors. There is no need to disassemble hundreds of kilometers of tunnels. We are dismantling the subterranean missile manufacturing facilities, the command and control center, the computers, the cash, the weaponry, and the ammunition. We’re taking a deliberate approach to it,” he said.
“The Israeli military command cannot be replaced, and we are carrying it out in a very responsible manner. Even if Hamas is making every effort to keep people in danger, Israel’s army has gone to greater lengths to remove them from harm’s path, according to John Spencer, head of urban warfare at the Modern War Institute,” Netanyahu continued.
The Gaza Health Ministry, which Hamas manages, reports that over 29,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza since the start of the conflict. These figures do not distinguish between Hamas operatives and civilians and cannot be independently confirmed. Over 12,000 Hamas fighters have reportedly been killed by the IDF during its operations in Gaza so far.
Following the October 7 incident, in which Hamas militants abducted 253 people and killed almost 1,200 people in a rampage throughout southern Israel, predominantly civilians, the war broke out. There are still around 130 in Gaza.
This article was created using automation technology and was thoroughly edited and fact-checked by one of our editorial staff members