Benjamin Netanyahu has reiterated that Hamas must be completely destroyed before Israel will agree to end its war in Gaza, casting doubt on Joe Biden’s announcement of a new Israeli-led ceasefire proposal.
The Israeli prime minister made a rare statement on Saturday, during the Jewish Shabbat, in which he said: “Israel’s conditions for ending the war have not changed: the destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel.
“The notion that Israel will agree to a permanent ceasefire before these conditions are fulfilled is a non-starter,” he added.
He also accepted an invitation to address a joint session of Congress in coming months.
The comments come after Biden’s dramatic late-night announcement on Friday, in which he urged Hamas to accept what he said was a new three-phrase roadmap towards a permanent ceasefire in the nine-month-old war, tabled by Israel.
Hamas issued a statement on Friday saying it received the proposals “positively”, after reiterating its position only a day before that it would not engage in negotiations while Israeli military operations are continuing in the Gaza Strip.
Biden’s announcement was welcomed by world leaders despite the seeming Israeli hesitation. The UN secretary general, António Guterres, called on “all parties to seize this opportunity for a ceasefire, release of all hostages, guaranteed unhindered humanitarian access and ultimately a durable peace in the Middle East”.
The UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, urged Hamas to accept the proposal. “As we’ve long argued, a stop in the fighting can be turned into a permanent peace if we are all prepared to take the right steps. Let’s seize this moment and bring this conflict to an end,” he said.
The German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said the Israeli offer “provides a glimpse of hope and a possible path out of the war’s deadlock” and the EU chief, Ursula von der Leyen, welcomed a “balanced and realistic” approach to end the bloodshed.
But despite Biden’s description of the peace deal as an Israeli proposal, there was uncertainty about whether Netanyahu’s government fully supported the plan. The US president’s speech – his most pointed call to date for the war to end – appeared to be designed to pressure Israel as much as Hamas.
Because of Shabbat, when many people are offline, there was little immediate reaction to Biden’s speech in Israel, or to Netanyahu’s comments. The Israeli opposition leader, Yair Lapid, urged Netanyahu to agree to a hostage and ceasefire deal, saying his centrist Yesh Atid party would support it even if rightwing factions in the governing coalition rebelled – meaning a deal would be likely to pass in parliament.
“The government of Israel cannot ignore President Biden’s consequential speech. There is a deal on the table and it should be made,” he said.
Biden’s unexpected announcement comes two weeks after Netanyahu rejected a new proposal and reportedly told the Israeli delegation they “did not know how to negotiate”.
Around the same time, the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, reportedly came away from a visit to the region saying he did not believe Netanyahu could or would commit to a long-term peace process.
It also comes in the wake of what Israeli hostage families said was an “aggressive” meeting on Thursday with the country’s national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, who told them the government was not willing to sacrifice its war aims to bring all of the hostages home.
“We know that the government has done an awful lot to delay reaching a deal, and that has cost the lives of many people who survived in captivity for weeks and weeks and months and months,” said Sharone Lifschitz, whose mother, Yocheved, was freed in November. Her father, Oded, is still in Gaza.
Any concessions to Palestinians are completely unpalatable for the prime minister’s far-right coalition partners, who have vowed to collapse his coalition government if such moves are made. Netanyahu sees remaining in office as his best chance of beating corruption charges, which he denies.
However, the Israeli leader is also facing growing pressure from his military and intelligence chiefs, as well as the centrist members of his war cabinet, to outline a plan for administering and rebuilding Gaza when the war ends. Benny Gantz, a major rival who joined Netanyahu’s emergency unity government after 7 October, has said he will resign if the prime minister does not commit to a “day after” plan by a deadline of 8 June.
The new roadmap does not significantly differ from previous proposals, although the New York Times reported that Israel had made significant concessions during talks held in Paris last week between the CIA director, Bill Burns, and the Mossad head, David Barnea, on how many hostages would be released initially.
A first phase would consist of a six-week-long and extendable ceasefire in which Hamas would release “a number of hostages” including women, and elderly and wounded people, in return for an Israeli withdrawal from populated parts of Gaza and the freeing of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
In the second phase, also of six weeks, all remaining hostages would be released, Israel would completely withdraw from Gaza, and both parties would commit to a lasting truce. In the third, major reconstruction in the decimated strip would begin.
About 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed in Hamas’s assault on 7 October, with a further 250 taken hostage, and about 36,000 people have been killed by Israel in the ensuing war in Gaza, according to the Palestinian health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths.
A hostage and prisoner release deal in November collapsed after a week, and ceasefire negotiations since then have repeatedly foundered.
Israeli ground forces continued to push into the centre of the southern Gaza city of Rafah on Saturday, in an operation that has displaced about 1 million people.
Israel’s decision last month to send ground troops into Rafah, the main gateway connecting Gaza to the outside world, led to the collapse of the last round of ceasefire talks designed to avert the assault. It has also significantly disrupted aid deliveries.
