Israeli PM Netanyahu reacts to Hamas hostage deal reports, lauds ‘friend’ Joe Biden

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday reacted to some reports of a possible hostage agreement with Palestinian terrorist group Hamas and made it clear that “as of now, there has been no deal”. Despite heavy international pressure against Israel’s war on Hamas, Netanyahu pledged to continue pressing the operation in Gaza until the terror group is overthrown and the hostages it seized are returned.

Speaking during a press conference with defence minister Yoav Gallant and minister Benny Gantz, Benjamin Netanyahu said, “Concerning the hostages, there are many unsubstantiated rumours, many incorrect reports. I would like to make it clear: As of now, there has been no deal.”

He, however, assured that “when there is something to say – we will report to you about it”.

The Israeli prime minister vowed to destroy Hamas after the militant group's October 7 rampage into Israel in which its fighters killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostages.

“Until now in the war, we have achieved much: We have eliminated thousands of terrorists. We have eliminated senior commanders. We have destroyed administrative centres. We have destroyed tunnels – and we continue. We will continue onward with full force,” Netanyahu said.

Thousands of family members and supporters of some 240 hostages held in Gaza streamed into Jerusalem on Saturday, castigating Israeli Netanyahu's government over his management of the war with Hamas and pleading with the government to do whatever it takes to bring their loved ones home.

As public pressure mounted, Netanyahu said he was aware of the “terrible suffering”, the nightmare" that the families are in. “I invited representatives of the families to meet with the War Cabinet later in the week in order to clarify how important this subject is to all of us – to me and my colleagues here, to all of us,” the prime minister said.

Netanyahu also greatly appreciated "the support of the US” and that it is sending constant shipments of crucial weaponry and defence equipment, while noting bipartisan support for the Jewish state in Congress.

“I greatly appreciate the US, under the leadership of our friend President Biden, who sees eye-to-eye the common interest with Israel. The US has sent to the Middle East aircraft carriers and support vessels, and a special submarine, and is constantly sending us vital munitions,” he said.

Netanyahu said Israel has attained a number of achievements during the Gaza operation due to three main reasons.

"First – the heroism and sacrifice of our sons and daughters. I have met with the fighting men and women from all corps – sea, land and air and from all of the security services.

“The second thing is the unity and determination of the people. I have met with mayors from the north and south, who give, in their names and those of their residents - full backing to the IDF, the ISA, the security services and the government. They all say: 'Continue. Don't stop,'” he said.

And the third, according to Netanyahu, is a ‘diplomatic Iron Dome’ that allows us to continue fighting until victory. “I would like to tell you, citizens of Israel, after 43 days of difficult fighting, this is not self-evident,” he said.

Israeli military to turn south Gaza in hunt for Hamas leaders

Israel said it was entering the “next stage” of the war, as attention turned from the rubble of Gaza City to Khan Younis in the south. Netanyahu, at the news conference, wouldn’t say if he believed top Hamas leaders are hiding there. “We’ll get to them,” he said. “All Hamas leaders are dead men walking.”

Meanwhile, a Hamas spokesperson said the group has lost contact with the fighters assigned to guard some hostages. He didn’t say how many of the approximately 240 hostages held in Gaza were unaccounted for. A senior US diplomat said Hamas must free more hostages in return for a significant increase in aid to Gaza and a pause in fighting.

PM Netanyahu: "I would like to open with heartfelt condolences to the families of our heroic soldiers who have fallen in the Gaza Strip. We all embrace the families with boundless love and we all salute the fallen heroes.

Prime Minister of Israel

@IsraeliPM

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They fought for us all, to defend our home, and thanks to them our lives are assured. May their memories be blessed and may G-d avenge them

Prime Minister of Israel

@IsraeliPM

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Today I also saw the march of the hostages' families. I would like to tell the hostages' families: We are marching with you. I am marching with you. The entire people of Israel are marching with you. Your loved ones are in our hearts and before our eyes constantly.

Prime Minister of Israel

@IsraeliPM

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Prime Minister of Israel

@IsraeliPM

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Prime Minister of Israel

@IsraeliPM

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These achievements have been attained due to three main items: First – the heroism and sacrifice of our sons and daughters. I have met with the fighting men and women from all corps – sea, land and air and from all of the security services.

Prime Minister of Israel

@IsraeliPM

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Thanks to the brave fighting men and women of the IDF, the ISA and the Israel Police, thanks to the soldiers and commanders of the divisions that have broken through forward into Gaza with supreme heroism, and who are unstoppable – we will win.

Prime Minister of Israel

@IsraeliPM

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The second thing is the unity and determination of the people. I have met with mayors from the north and south, who give, in their names and those of their residents - full backing to the IDF, the ISA, the security services and the government. They all say: 'Continue. Don't stop'

Prime Minister of Israel

@IsraeliPM

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I have heard this from the evacuees, the wounded and families of our fallen heroes, who say the same things with mournful hearts but with a steadfast spirit. The Israeli spirit that beats within us all, civilians and soldiers alike, is the second condition for achieving victory.

Prime Minister of Israel

@IsraeliPM

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And the third thing that has brought the achievement is a 'diplomatic Iron Dome' that allows us to continue fighting until victory. I would like to tell you, citizens of Israel, after 43 days of difficult fighting, this is not self-evident.

Prime Minister of Israel

@IsraeliPM

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday said there was heavy international pressure against Israel’s war on Hamas, as he pledged to continue pressing the military campaign in Gaza until the terror group is overthrown and the hostages it seized are returned.

Speaking during a lengthy press conference, Netanyahu also dismissed “a lot of incorrect reports” about imminent agreements to free some or all of the roughly 240 people being held, adding that “as of now there is no deal.” He said that if a deal emerges the Israeli public will be updated.

“We are marching with you, I am marching with you, all of the people of Israel are marching with you,” he said, referring to the five-day march that families of the hostages undertook from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem ending Saturday, adding that he invited families of hostages to meet with the war cabinet in the coming week.

The premier was later asked if he had passed up a serious deal on Tuesday for a release of some 50 hostages, and if he was insisting that all be released. Netanyahu responded that “there was no deal on the table” and he could not elaborate further.

“We want to get back all the hostages,” he said. “We’re doing the utmost to bring back the most possible, including in stages, and we are united on this.”

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“We obviously want to bring [home] whole families together,” he added later.

Families of hostages held in Gaza, and their supporters, gather at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, November 18, 2023. (David Papish)

As Netanyahu was set to speak,

families of hostages held in Gaza and thousands of their supporters demonstrated in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square in a rally focused in particular on the some 40 children believed held hostage in Gaza.

To coincide with Monday’s World Children’s Day, most of the speakers were relatives of the children being held by Hamas and other terrorist groups since the October 7 massacres.

Many of the families of the hostages headed straight to Tel Aviv after completing a five-day march to Jerusalem earlier in the day, which culminated in a protest outside the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem.

Late Saturday, several hundred people gathered on Jerusalem’s Kaplan Street, near the Knesset, for a silent rally paying homage to the some 1,200 people killed by terrorists last month and praying for the hostages.

The gathering — organized by Shomrim Al Habayit Hameshutaf (Safeguarding our Joint Home), which used to run protests against the government’s planned judicial overhaul — was quiet, without drums and bullhorns.

Eitan Zur, the brother of Amir Zur, a soldier in the Sayeret Matkal unit who was killed on October 7 at Kibbutz Kfar Aza, mourned his brother, a humorous, righteous person who attended the anti-judicial overhaul rallies whenever he had a weekend off.

Despite the pain and sorrow, said Zur, “we need to fix our reality.”

“The reality won’t change if we don’t find a new direction,” he said.

A ‘silent rally’ held in Jerusalem to memorialize those killed by Hamas and call for the return of hostages, November 18, 2023. (Jessica Steinberg/Times of Israel)

Former Jerusalem deputy mayor Tamir Nir, a Reform rabbi, recited a prayer for the hostages.

Tzivya Guggenheim, a student at Shalem Center, said the Knesset and other government institutions near where the protest took place “have failed in their responsibilities.”

“We’re here to make sure this generation has what’s needed. I promise in the name of my generation that this country will be better.”

‘Insisting on our essential security and diplomatic interests’

At his press conference alongside Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and fellow war cabinet minister Benny Gantz, Netanyahu said Israel has “eliminated thousands of terrorists,” including senior commanders, and destroyed command posts and tunnels. “We’re moving forward with full force,” he said.

While Israel has the support of the US and others for the ongoing war, “there is growing pressure against us, in the US and elsewhere,” he said.

In comments seemingly responding to anger within his coalition and parts of the electorate against Israel allowing two trucks of fuel into the Strip each day despite having vowed not to, Netanyahu listed all the ways Israel has ignored demands from many quarters, including pressure not to launch its ground invasion, not to go into Gaza City, and not to go into Shifa Hospital. Israel was undeterred, he said.

“They also pressed us to agree to a full ceasefire. We refused. And I made clear that we would only agree to a temporary ceasefire and only for the return of our hostages.”

He added: “Together with my colleagues, I rebuff the pressure and make clear to the world: We will continue to fight until victory. Until we destroy Hamas. And until we bring our hostages home.”

“We are insisting on our essential security and diplomatic interests… in the face of heavy opposition. When our enemies and our friends recognize our firm stance, when they hear it in international media interviews, and in discussions with leaders, we obtain the necessary room for maneuver to continue the operation. This cannot be taken for granted.”

Netanyahu said he greatly “appreciates the support of the US” and that it is sending constant shipments of crucial weaponry and defense equipment, while noting bipartisan support for the Jewish state in Congress.

He said Israel’s leadership was in daily contact with the White House, and “I give US media interviews almost every day to persuade the American public of the rightness of our path.”

He also hailed Tuesday’s unprecedentedly large pro-Israel rally in Washington, DC, which organizers said was the largest gathering of Jews in American history.

He said he speaks every day with other international leaders. All this and more, he said, ensures Israel continues to receive the military support it needs from the US, and thwarts international initiatives against Israel that would endanger its ability to keep fighting.

He said that allowing humanitarian aid to Gaza is crucial to continue the war against Hamas, and said without it there would be less international support for Israel’s military campaign. “Even our best friends would be hard-pressed to maintain their support for us in the long-term and that would make it hard for us to complete the war,” he said.

“The IDF and the Shin Bet recommended that the cabinet accept the American request to allow two fuel tankers a day to enter the southern Gaza Strip,” he said, and the cabinet backed this unanimously.

“This is a minimal emergency quantity of fuel — fuel to operate water pumps and sewage pumps, without which there would be an eruption of epidemics that would harm residents of the Strip and IDF soldiers.”

He noted that the IDF always follows “the laws of war. That’s how our army operates, the world’s most moral army.”

He set out three war missions that will be fulfilled: “Complete victory, to destroy Hamas. To return the hostages. And to ensure that after victory, Gaza will never again constitute a threat to Israeli citizens. I will not allow into Gaza any party that supports terrorism, pays terrorists or their families, or educates their children to murder Jews and [to seek] the destruction of Israel,” he vowed, in reference to the Palestinian Authority. “Without that revolution in the civilian governance of Gaza, it’s only a matter of time until Gaza returns to terror, and I won’t agree to that.”

An additional condition, he said: “The IDF will have complete freedom of action in Gaza against any threat. That is the only way to guarantee the demilitarization of Gaza.”

Operation in Gaza to ‘soon’ expand

Speaking after Netanyahu, Defense Minister Gallant said the IDF was continuing to hit Hamas hard in the Strip and will also operate “soon” in the south of Gaza.

“We are in the second stage of the ground invasion, also operating in the east of the Strip,” he said. “Hamas has been hit hard, it’s losing tunnels, bunkers, posts,” and many of its senior commanders have been killed, Gallant added.

“We are reaching all of the sites sensitive to Hamas and hitting them,” he said.

“With every passing day, there are fewer places for the Hamas terrorists to move around,” he said.

Those hiding out in the south of the Strip, where the IDF has yet to send in ground troops, “will feel this soon,” said Gallant.

The defense minister said he meets with families of hostages every week and that there is no higher priority than to bring the hostages home.

“I think Hamas is playing with the emotions of the families and with the Israeli public,” he said, adding that the war cabinet was united in its determination to bring the hostages home.

He said: “What happened on October 7 is worse than any other phenomenon in the world in recent decades. That’s Hamas. And Hamas only understands force.” Hence the decision to go to war to destroy Hamas and get back the hostages is increasingly proving to be the right decision, he says.

Hamas is solely interested in survival now, he said.

IDF soldiers in the Gaza Strip in a handout photo distributed on November 18, 2023. (Israel Defense Forces)

Minister Benny Gantz, a member of the war cabinet, said the military operation in Gaza will finish “only when we can promise security and bring our boys and girls home.”

“It will take as long as it takes. We are determined in this fight,” he said.

Gantz said he met with families of the hostages earlier Saturday, stressing that “everything we are doing is aimed first and foremost at bringing our boys and girls home.”

In an apparent reference to Hamas, Gantz said Israel has “decades if needed to destroy this thing.”

By contrast, “We don’t have decades to bring the people home… So, yes, from my point of view, it is a priority to get the hostages back. But that priority doesn’t override our obligation” to destroy Hamas, “however long it takes.”

“I want to bring back the elderly, and the children. Nobody here wants anything else. Nobody in Israel wants anything else,” said Gantz.

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