The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahurejected this Wednesday Hamas’s proposal for a possible truce in the Gaza Stripurging instead to continue exercising “military pressure” until achieving “absolute victory” that includes the release of the hostages who continue to be held in the Palestinian enclave.

“Continuing military pressure is a necessary condition to free the hostages, succumbing to Hamas will only lead to another massacre“, Netanyahu claimed in a press conference in which he added that the Israeli Army “must methodically destroy Hamas” until Gaza “does not represent any threat to Israel.”

With these statements, the head of the Government publicly rejects Hamas conditions to free more than a hundred Israeli hostages who continue to be held in Gaza. The Islamist group calls for the withdrawal of Israeli troops and the end of the offensive in the enclave as a framework for the release of hostages, a demand that Israel does not accept.

“Only an absolute victory will give security to Israel“Insisted Netanyahu, who has assured that Israeli forces continue to act to free the hostages, while pressure continues from their families to reach an agreement for their release.

The Israeli ‘premier’ has also assured that Israel “is on the way to victory” in the Strip and that the war will end “in a matter of months” amid the advances of Israeli troops in their ground offensive. Thus, he has claimed that his Army has already achieved “unprecedented achievements”, while “it continues to kill terrorists”, destroying command centers, military infrastructure or “the tunnels where Hamas hides.”

At the same time, he has insisted that after defeating the Islamist group, Israel will maintain control over Gaza and will seek to “remain demilitarized forever.” “We will continue until the end”he highlighted, four months after the Hamas attacks that caused some 1,200 deaths, in response to which Israel launched a relentless offensive on the enclave that has already killed more than 27,700 Palestinians, wreaked destruction and caused a very serious humanitarian crisis. .

The Hamas proposal

Hamas had proposed a three-phase truce agreement – 45 days each – to release the hostages in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners, the withdrawal of the Israeli Army from Gaza and the end of its military offensive. Following Netanyahu’s words, a senior official of the Islamist group, Sami Abu Zuhri, asserted in statements to Reuters that his statements are “a form of political bravado”, which indicate his intention to continue the conflict in the region.

Another Hamas leader, Osama Hamdan, has however indicated that a delegation led by Khalil Al-Hayya He will travel to Cairo on Thursday to speak with the mediators of Egypt and Qatar on a ceasefire and called on the militias to continue fighting.

For his part, the US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, has stated during a new visit to Israel that Hamas’s proposal leaves room for negotiation. “Clearly there are things that do not make sense in what is proposed, but we also see room to continue negotiations to see if we can reach an agreement, and that is what we intend to do,” Blinken said from Tel Aviv.

“I will not speak for Israel or anyone else involved, but we believe that the margin of space is there and we must take advantage of it“added the American diplomat, after Netanyahu removed the possibility of a truce.