The IDF must complete its mission to destroy Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday as he pushed back on pressure to stop the war, while third-party talks for a second hostage deal appeared to falter, with both Israel and Hamas at odds over a ceasefire.
"We are fighting until victory. We will not stop the war until we achieve all of its goals: Completing the elimination of Hamas and releasing all of our hostages,” Netanyahu stated in a video message he released.
“The choice I propose to Hamas is very simple: Surrender or die. They do not have – and will not have – any other choice,” he stressed.
Netanyahu to do what he can to ensure Gaza is never a threat again
“And after we eliminate Hamas, I will use all my power to ensure that Gaza never again threatens Israel – neither Hamastan nor Fatahstan,” he added.
It’s one of several messages Netanyahu has released this week as Egypt and Qatar have held separate talks with Hamas and Israel to advance a deal to secure the release of 129 hostages in Gaza.
An initial deal in late November led to the release of 105 of some of the more than 250 captives seized during Hamas’ infiltration into southern Israel when terrorists also killed over 1,200 people.
Netanyahu has been under increased public pressure to secure a deal after the IDF mistakenly killed three male hostages last weekend, who had attempted to surrender to their forces in Gaza after their captors were slain in a gun battle with the Israeli army.
Their deaths underscored the perils of the protracted captivity. Hamas, as part of its psychological warfare to secure a deal, has since released a video of three live elderly male hostages. On Thursday, it released a video about the three captives the IDF had killed.
Hamas has insisted that any deal must include a permanent ceasefire to the war sparked by the October 7 attack. The terror group on Thursday published a statement explaining that it rejected any hostage deal that did not also include an end to the war. All Palestinian factions are united in this call, Hamas said.
"There is a Palestinian national decision that there should be no talk about prisoners or exchange deals except after a full cessation of aggression," the statement said. In addition to Hamas, Islamic Jihad, a smaller Palestinian militant group, is also holding hostages in Gaza.
During a virtual conversation, an Israeli official told reporters that “at the moment we do not have negotiations, but there is some progress in that we meet with the Qataris twice already in the last week,” the official stated.
It was a reference to two meetings Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani held in the last week with Mossad Director David Barnea and CIA Director Bill Burns. Separately, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was in Cairo for ceasefire talks.
The Israeli official told reporters, “We made clear to everyone … that it’s time to renew the shaping up of a new hostage structure.”
“There was one that was very good,” the official said, pointing to the initial deal, by which the war was put on hold for a week. Israel also released some 240 Palestinian women and minors jailed for security offenses against Israel.
The official said that Israel was ready to discuss alternative options for structuring a deal. It’s expected that the next deal would be more complex and could include freeing Palestinian prisoners responsible for or involved in killing Israelis. The deal could also include a more protracted pause, but Israel has been clear that it has no plans to end the war until its goals are achieved.
Reuters contributed to this report