Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Tuesday that the army would launch a ground offensive on the southern Gaza city of Rafah “with or without” a ceasefire negotiated with Hamas.
The hawkish prime minister issued the warning despite strong concerns from top ally Washington and hours before US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was due to arrive in Israel on his latest crisis tour of the Middle East.
“The idea that we will stop the war before all its goals are achieved is out of the question,” said Netanyahu, who vowed to destroy Hamas after their Oct. 7 attack that sparked the deadliest Gaza war ever.
“We will invade Rafah and we will eliminate the Hamas battalions there, with or without an agreement, to achieve total victory,” he told the families of some of the hostages still held in Gaza, his office said.
Netanyahu's comments came as Hamas considered the latest plan for a ceasefire proposed during talks in Cairo with American, Egyptian and Qatari mediators, which had raised cautious hopes for an end to the fighting.
The Palestinian Hamas group said it is considering a plan for a 40-day ceasefire and the exchange of dozens of hostages for larger numbers of Palestinian prisoners.
The Islamist group, whose envoys returned from Cairo talks with their base in Qatar, would “discuss the ideas and the proposal,” a Hamas source said, adding that “we would like to respond as soon as possible.”
Sources in Egypt previously told Al-Qahera News, a site linked to Egyptian intelligence services, that Hamas envoys were about to “return with a written response.”
An Israeli official told AFP that the government will “wait for answers until Wednesday evening” and then “make a decision” on whether to send negotiators to Cairo.
– 'Only obstacle' –
Washington has increased pressure on all sides to reach a ceasefire – a message from Blinken, who was on his seventh regional tour since the war broke out.
Blinken, who arrived in Jordan from Saudi Arabia and headed to Israel later Wednesday for talks with Netanyahu and other officials, described Israel's offer as “extremely generous.”
Washington has strongly backed its ally but also pressed it to refrain from a ground invasion of Rafah, which is full of displaced civilians, and to do more to protect the area's 2.4 million residents.
President Joe Biden, facing mounting anger on American college campuses, urged Egyptian and Qatari leaders on Monday to “make every effort to secure the release of the hostages held by Hamas.”
Biden called this “the only obstacle” to securing aid for the citizens of Gaza, who the UN has warned are on the brink of famine.
Anger over the unprecedented scale of Palestinian suffering has led to weeks of large-scale protests at universities in the United States and elsewhere, including in France and Lebanon.
New York's Columbia University, the epicenter of the US protest movement, began suspending student demonstrators on Monday after they defied an ultimatum to disperse.
– Children rescued from the rubble –
As diplomacy continued, Israel continued its bombing campaign, crippling parts of Gaza.
An AFP correspondent reported several airstrikes in Gaza City, Khan Yunis and Rafah, as well as nighttime artillery shelling.
The Israeli military said fighter jets hit a number of terror targets in central Gaza.
Palestinians in Rafah mourned the latest victims as children were pulled from the rubble.
At Al-Najjar Hospital, grief-stricken relatives crowded over the dead, whose bodies were shrouded in white.
“We demand that the entire world calls for a lasting ceasefire,” said a bereaved family member, Abu Taha.
The war began after Hamas' attack on southern Israel on October 7 resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,535 people, mostly women and children, in Hamas-held territory, according to the Health Ministry.
Palestinian militants also took about 250 hostages on October 7. Israel estimates that 129 remain in Gaza, including 34 presumed dead.
In contrast to the group that Netanyahu met on Tuesday and which has advocated military action, many families of hostages have called on the government to secure the freedom of their loved ones through a ceasefire.
At a news conference in Tel Aviv on Monday, Aviva Siegel – released during a ceasefire in November and whose husband Keith remains in Gaza captivity – urged “the leaders of the free world to help us bring our people home.” .
– Post-war state? –
While the Gaza War has roiled the region and its human toll has sparked international outrage, political momentum has built up in the search for a post-war solution to the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
European and Arab foreign ministers met in the Saudi capital on Monday to discuss how to join forces in promoting a two-state solution.
Netanyahu and many members of his far-right government are against Palestinian statehood.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said he expected several European governments to announce their recognition of a Palestinian state within the next month, including Belgium, Ireland, Malta, Slovenia and Spain.
To give Israel an incentive to support a Palestinian state, Washington has raised the prospect of normalized relations with the Gulf's king, Saudi Arabia, with Blinken suggesting some progress was being made on that front.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said irreversible steps toward the creation of a Palestinian state would be an essential part of a lasting ceasefire.
China, meanwhile, said rival Palestinian groups Hamas and Fatah had recently met in Beijing for “talks on promoting intra-Palestinian reconciliation.”
Hamas took exclusive control of Gaza in 2007, while Fatah maintains partial administrative control of the Israeli-occupied West Bank through the Palestinian Authority.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said “the two sides have fully expressed their political will to achieve reconciliation,” without saying when they met.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Our staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)