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2025-04-20 Israel-Palestine-Jordan
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Netanyahu: Won’t surrender to Hamas by ending war to get back hostages; can’t trick Hamas either
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[IsraelTimes] PM insists fighting won’t end until terror group destroyed, derides ‘experts’ who say he could fool Hamas with fake promise to end war, get captives back, and then resume fighting
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Saturday night that he would not end the war with Hamas in Gaza until the terror group is removed from power, calling its current demands for a hostage release deal “capitulation conditions.”
Speaking in a prerecorded video address that his office described the day before as a “special statement on a diplomatic matter,” Netanyahu argued that Hamas would rehabilitate its military capabilities if the conflict were ended.
He asserted that it was not possible to “trick” the terror group into ending the war in return for the hostages and then resume military operations, due to “binding” international commitments Hamas was demanding as part of an end to hostilities. Those who were suggesting this “illusion of deception” had no idea how international politics works, he said.
The prime minister also accused Hamas of stymying a recently proposed deal for the return of Israeli hostages due to its demands for a permanent end to the current war and a full Israeli retreat from Gaza, and argued that ending the war would reverse Israel’s achievements during the conflict.
The prime minister further vowed in his 12-minute speech that he remained committed to preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, and slammed recent criticism of his failure to attack Iranian nuclear facilities as hypocrisy.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum accused Netanyahu of having “no plan” to bring back the hostages in response to the prime minister’s comments, and said the only solution was to end the war.
‘HAMAS ARE NOT IDIOTS’
Netanyahu released his prerecorded video address — he hasn’t held a press conference with questions from the media in over four months — shortly after the end of the Passover holiday, and two days after Hamas publicly rejected an Israeli proposal for a temporary ceasefire in the Gaza Strip in return for the release of half the remaining living hostages and the remains of dead hostages.
“We will not end the ‘war of revival’ before we destroy Hamas in Gaza, return all our hostages and ensure that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel,” averred Netanyahu, using his preferred name for the conflict started by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, terror onslaught in southern Israel.
He said Hamas is demanding a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, including from the Philadelphi Corridor on the Egypt-Gaza border and the buffer zone Israel has established around the territory, and stated that Hamas is demanding “binding international guarantees” to ensure that Israel does not go back to war after the release of the hostages.
“Those among us who are saying capitulate to the dictates of Hamas are saying ‘capitulate now, leave Gaza and the Philadelphi Corridor, deceive Hamas, promise you won’t go back to war, and when we have got all the hostages back, go back to war.’
“Hamas are a group of despicable murderers, but they’re not stupid,” he went on. “They are demanding binding international guarantees which do not enable this illusion of deception which all these experts are suggesting.
“These people have no idea how the international system works. No one, not the US, not China, not Russia, not others in the UN Security Council, will cooperate with this scam, something which will make returning to war impossible. We won’t have any legitimacy to do this. There is no ‘fake obligation’. If we obligate not to fight, we can’t go back to fighting in Gaza.”
Speaking about Hamas’s demand for a hostage release deal, Netanyahu said that if Israel were to “capitulate to the dictates of Hamas,” it would lose all of its achievements during the conflict “which we achieved with the merit of our soldiers and our fallen and our heroic injured.”
The prime minister argued that if Israel “does not complete the destruction of Hamas’s military capabilities,” its next attack on Israel and its next hostage taking effort will just be a matter of time.
“Leaving Hamas in charge in Gaza would be a massive defeat for Israel and a massive victory for Iran,” said Netanyahu, who throughout 18 months of war has avoided laying out a concrete plan for postwar Gaza.
“As your prime minister, I will not capitulate to the murderers who committed the worst massacre against the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Capitulation like this will endanger the country and endanger you.”
He went on to denounce what he described as calls to “surrender” to Hamas’s terms, which he said have grown of late — an apparent reference to a stream of letters urging him to prioritize the return of all the hostages even at the price of ending the war.
If he had heeded such calls, he claimed, Israel would not have entered the southern Gaza city of Rafah last year, taken control of the Philadelphi Corridor, carried out the exploding pager attack on Hezbollah, killed Hamas’s leaders, created the conditions for the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, or dealt “the harsh blow” it has delivered to Iran.
Instead, he said, Israel would have continued “to live under existential threat.”
‘WON’T LET UP’ ON IRAN NUKES
Turning to the threat of Iran’s nuclear program, the prime minister insisted he remains committed to preventing Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons. “I won’t give up on this, I won’t let up on this, and I won’t withdraw from this — not a millimeter.”
And he attacked critics who have slammed him of late for failing to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, asserting that these are the same people who opposed actions he took against Iran in the past.
“It is amusing to listen to the criticism of those who opposed the actions I took to harm and delay Iran’s nuclear program in the past, actions without which Iran would have had a nuclear weapon 10 years ago,” claimed Netanyahu.
Last week, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid accused Netanyahu of scuttling opportunities to hit Iran, while former prime minister Naftali Bennett said Netanyahu has failed to follow through on threats against Tehran.
Their comments came against the background of a report that US President Donald Trump recently blocked an Israeli-proposed strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, which Netanyahu has not denied. Trump later said he was in no rush to green-light strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The US is now engaged in negotiations with Iran on a new deal.
HOSTAGES’ FAMILIES: THERE IS NO PLAN
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum was strongly critical of Netanyahu’s comments about a hostage release deal, stating that the premier did not articulate any plan to free their loved ones from Hamas captivity.
Of course. They will accept nothing less than total surrender, followed by replacing the Netanyahu government with the current iteration of the labour socialists. Selfish asses, all. 
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Posted by trailing wife 2025-04-20 00:00||
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