Israel has proposed a hostage deal but has not received a genuine proposal from Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday.
“There is an initiative of ours, and I will not elaborate,” he told representatives of the captives’ families when he met with them.
Netanyahu spoke after a Wall Street Journal report that mediating countries Egypt and Qatar had proposed a three-phased 90-day process to secure the release of all the hostages, which would involve an Israeli agreement to free Palestinian security prisoners and to largely withdraw IDF forces from Gaza.
The proposal stoked the largely extinguished hopes that some kind of a proposal might be in the offing.
Hamas’s terms to free 132 hostages in Gaza constituted “capitulation,” Netanyahu said a video message Sunday night, adding that he “utterly” rejected them.
In his meeting with the hostages’ families, Netanyahu dismissed the possibility that a relevant Hamas proposal was on the table.
“Contrary to what is being said, there is no genuine proposal by Hamas,” he said. “This is not true. I will say this as clearly as I can because there are so many incorrect [reports] that are certainly causing you pain.”
An Israeli official on Monday told The Jerusalem Post: “Netanyahu wants very much to promote the release of hostages. He is working to advance this while safeguarding the vital interests of the state, which require the destruction of the organization of sadistic murderers Hamas.”
Netanyahu spoke while under increasing domestic pressure to make a deal – even if it means ending the war, which has no end date in sight or even clear goalposts by which to measure how close the IDF might to be driving Hamas from Gaza.
Past decisions and where they led
Labor Party leader Merav Michaeli on Monday told her Knesset faction: “To bring our hostages home, we must also be prepared to stop fighting. You can’t keep muttering, ‘Bringing the hostages home is above all else.’ You can’t keep on lying by saying, ‘Only total victory will ensure the elimination of Hamas and the return of all our hostages.’ It will take a very long time to bring down Hamas – time that we do not have, and time that they [the hostages] don’t have.
And we don’t have time to keep putting them in clear and immediate danger, day after day after day.”
For a decade, she said, she had warned Netanyahu about the dangers of his policies, including his decisions to hand the terrorist group “suitcases of dollars to build rocket launchers and tunnels.”
“Where were you for 10 years when we shouted and warned you?” Michaeli said. “You can’t have it both ways. It’s either stopping the war now, or continuing it and abandoning the hostages. You can’t keep on saying both. These word games mask the obvious decision you must make. The State of Israel must clearly state that the hostages take priority.”
National Unity MK Gadi Eisenkot on Thursday told Channel 12’s Uvda program the only way to bring the hostages home was through a deal.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (Religious Zionist Party) on Monday told his Knesset faction the military campaign was one of the tools that enabled Israel to press for a deal, and ending the war would eliminate its effectiveness.
It is not possible to end the war prior to destroying Hamas and to secure a deal for the release of the hostages, he said.
“There is no Israeli or Jew in the world who does not feel the heart-wrenching pain and the deep sorrow over [the fate of the] innocent women, adults, and children who are now held captive by the Nazi murderers in Gaza,” he said.
“Israel is obligated to do everything in its power to bring them home,” Smotrich said. A “responsible leadership” must “look these dear people in the eye” and tell them that Hamas’s demands for a deal endanger the state’s nine million residents and open the door for a repeat of the October 9 massacre, he said.
The idea that it would be possible to halt the war for several months and then “eliminate Hamas is eye-catching science fiction” that underestimates the strength of the enemy, Smotrich said. It was the type of miscalculation that has already harmed the country’s security, he added.
The IDF must therefore continue “courageously” with its campaign, “despite pressure from the US and others,” Smotrich said.
Earlier in the day, family members of the hostages forced their way into a Knesset Finance Committee meeting in the Knesset and demanded that the MKs do more to try to free their loved ones.
One woman held up pictures of three family members who were among the 132 remaining hostages, out of the 253 seized during the October 7 Hamas attack. Another 110 have been freed alive, and the IDF has returned the bodies of 11 of the hostages.
At this point, the woman said, she was hoping for “just one.” “I’d like to get back alive, one out of three,” she said.Other protesters held up signs that said: “You will not sit here while they die there.”
“Release them now, now, now,” they chanted.
Families and supporters have also started camping outside Netanyahu’s home in Caesarea and at the Knesset.“We will not leave him until the hostages are back,” said Eli Stivi, whose son Idan is being held in Gaza.
Regular weekend rallies demanding that the hostages be released have in recent weeks been reinforced by demonstrations calling for an election that might topple the right-wing government.
In the Knesset on Monday, parliamentary ushers, often quick to eject hecklers or protesters, initially tried to block the families but then stood by during the ruckus in the Finance Committee. One MK covered her face with her hands.
Committee chairman Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) stood up and called a halt to the economic briefing under way and sought to calm the protester.
“Redeeming captives is the most important precept in Judaism, especially in this case, where there is an urgency to preserving life,” he said, adding: “Quitting the coalition would not achieve anything.”
Outside the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem – on Aza Street, Hebrew for Gaza Street – the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum set up a vigil calling for a hostage deal to be advanced.
“If the prime minister decides to sacrifice the hostages, he should show leadership and honestly share his position with the Israeli public,” the forum said in a statement.
Reuters contributed to this report.