Israel Says Biden Omitted Key Detail From Gaza Ceasefire Plan, No Long-Term Truce With Hamas in Power
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said that US President Joe Biden had disclosed only part of the proposal aimed at achieving a ceasefire in Gaza and securing the release of Israeli hostages, and added that he had not agreed to end Israel’s military operations against Hamas.
“The proposal contains more details that Biden did not mention,” Netanyahu was cited in Israeli media reports as saying at the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset.
“Biden omitted one crucial detail regarding the second stage” of the deal, Netanyahu said. “Israel didn’t agree to end the war, but only to ‘discuss’ its end,” Netanyahu said, adding that such a discussion would occur after the hostages were returned and “only on our terms.”
“Despite what President Biden said, the number of hostages that will be released in the first phase has not yet been agreed upon. There are many details in the deal, and the war will not end without us achieving all of our objectives. We will not give up on absolute victory,” he said.
In a speech on Friday, Biden disclosed that a day earlier, a new three-phase Israeli proposal for a hostage deal was passed onto Hamas through Qatar and detailed some of its main terms.
Biden said the deal would “bring all the hostages home, ensure Israel’s security, create a better day after in Gaza without Hamas in power, and set the stage for a political settlement that provides a better future for Israelis and Palestinians alike.”
There is widespread dissatisfaction among senior Israeli officials who feel Biden’s remarks lacked specifics on how the stated goal of dismantling Hamas would be accomplished, fueling criticism that the US president misrepresented the full scope of Israel’s uncompromising stance in fully defeating the Palestinian terror group.
“People have unfortunately been led to believe that a permanent ceasefire kicks in without Israel’s conditions being met,” senior Netanyahu adviser Ophir Falk told The Algemeiner.
“The notion that there will be a permanent ceasefire before Hamas’ military and governing capabilities are destroyed and all our hostages are home is a non-starter,” he added.
Hours after Netanyahu charged Biden with omitting key elements of the deal, US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters: “We’re confident that [Biden’s speech] accurately reflects that proposal — a proposal that we worked with the Israelis on, so I know of no gaps to speak of.”
Kirby said that Biden’s decision to disclose details about the deal was “about putting some public pressure on Mr. [Yahya] Sinwar and Hamas, who have repeatedly refused to accept what Israel has put forward.”
“We don’t typically go through the details of these kinds of proposals,” Kirby said. “But in this case, given where we are, given how much longer the hostages have now been held, given the fact that Hamas has reneged on several past occasions, on proposals that were sent to them, and given the fact that the Israelis really did work hard to come up with this proposal, and did so in good faith, the president felt it was important for the first time to publicly lay that out.”
“This wasn’t about jamming the prime minister or the war cabinet,” he said.
The far-right flank of Netanyahu’s governing coalition has sworn to collapse the government if a deal falls short of allowing the complete destruction of Hamas, which rules Gaza and launched the ongoing war with its Oct. 7 onslaught across southern Israel.
“This was about laying bare for the public to see how well and how faithfully and how assertively the Israelis came up with a new proposal — how it shows how much they really want to get this done,” Kirby said.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Monday confirmed the deaths of four more hostages: Haim Perry, Yoram Metzger, Amiram Cooper, and Nadav Popplewell, all from Kibbutz Nir Oz.
Three of the four — Perry, Metzger, and Cooper — appeared in a propaganda video released by Hamas on Dec. 18, in which the hostages urged Netanyahu “not to let us grow old here.”
According to the IDF, the four were murdered in Khan Younis shortly after the video was filmed.
Osnat Perry, the wife of Haim Perry and chairwoman of Nir Oz, released an open letter on Monday to Netanyahu calling on him to make the “moral, courageous, and correct decision” to bring home the hostages.
“The outline of your proposal, as presented this week by the president of the United States, is a sustainable and feasible outline that can put an end to the ongoing suffering that we and our friends from the Western Negev are experiencing,” Perry wrote.
On Oct. 7, Haim saved Osnat’s life by confronting the terrorists, purposefully leading them outside so that she had time to run and hide. A quarter of Nir Oz’s residents were murdered or taken as hostages to Gaza.
