For Netanyahu, keeping the IDF in Gaza is more important than getting the hostages out

For Netanyahu, keeping the IDF in Gaza is more important than getting the hostages out

David Horovitz writes:

Israel will have to battle Hamas for a long, long time to come, the security chiefs have argued. But time is running out for the hostages. And while the IDF has heavily degraded Hamas’s capabilities, the fact is that only eight hostages have been extricated alive from Gaza during almost 11 months of war. The weeklong truce last November, by contrast, saw the release of 105. Bringing home the maximal number of living hostages — from captors with reported standing orders from Hamas to kill them if they fear that Israeli troops are approaching — requires a deal.

On Thursday night, Netanyahu pushed through a vote at the key decision-making security cabinet endorsing maps drawn up at his request — and already conveyed by the mediators to Hamas — that provide for keeping IDF troops at the Philadelphi Corridor, the 14-kilometer route along the Gaza-Egypt border, during the first, six-week phase of the deadlocked potential deal.

Blindsided by the vote, a horrified Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, according to widely leaked transcripts of the meeting, argued that it risked torpedoing the deal and thus dooming the hostages. “The significance of this is that Hamas won’t agree to it, so there won’t be an agreement and there won’t be any hostages released,” Gallant reportedly told the ministers.

Netanyahu replied: “This is the decision.”

Gallant, though isolated in a forum dominated by Netanyahu loyalists along with the far-right ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, tried again: He reportedly told his ministerial colleagues that, if they approved the maps, they would be choosing to maintain the IDF’s deployment on the Philadelphi Corridor for six more weeks at the price of failing to bring home hostages. “Does this seem logical to you?” Gallant reportedly asked. “There are living (hostages) there!” [Continue reading…]

Reuters reports:

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday to conclude a ceasefire deal with Hamas to bring the remaining hostages home from Gaza, as the bodies of six of those taken on Oct. 7 were brought home.

“It’s too late for the abductees who were murdered in cold blood. The abductees who remain in the captivity of Hamas must be returned home,” he said on the social media platform X.

“The political-security cabinet must convene immediately and reverse the decision made on Thursday,” he said, referring to a decision by the cabinet to insist on keeping troops in the so-called Philadelphi corridor, along the southern edge of Gaza.

Netanyahu’s insistence on keeping troops in the corridor to prevent Hamas smuggling weapons in from Egypt, has been widely seen as one of the major obstacles to an agreement with Hamas in talks brokered by Egypt and Qatar.

Gallant has clashed repeatedly with Netanyahu and hardline religious nationalist ministers over the need to reach a deal to halt the fighting in Gaza and bring the remaining hostages back in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

Around a third of the 101 Israeli and foreign captives still in Gaza are believed to have died, with the fate of the others unknown. [Continue reading…]

BBC News reports:

A major Israeli labour union has called for a nationwide general strike on Monday after the bodies of six hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip were recovered.

“We are getting body bags instead of a deal,” said Arnon Bar-David, chairman of the Histadrut, which represents around 800,000 members.

He called on workers to stage a one-day walkout from 06:00 local time on Monday, adding that Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport will be closed from 08:00.

The intervention came just hours before thousands of protesters took to the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, as pressure mounted on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach a deal to return the remaining hostages.

In Jerusalem, demonstrators -some of them openly weeping – gathered outside Mr Netanyahu’s office. In Tel Aviv, some protesters chanted “Now” – demanding an urgent hostage deal.

Families of the hostages have been pushing for a nationwide strike as part of efforts to get a ceasefire agreement between Mr Netanyahu’s government and Hamas.

The Hostages Families Forum said that all six held captive were “murdered in the last few days, after surviving almost 11 months of abuse, torture and starvation in Hamas captivity”.

“The delay in signing the deal has led to their deaths and those of many other hostages,” it said. [Continue reading…]

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