Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the idea of starting a ceasefire in Gaza while Hamas remains in power, after The New York Times published an article citing six current and former security officials who said a truce would give Israeli troops time to prepare for a potential land war with Hezbollah. <\/p>\n
The officials, most of whom spoke anonymously to \u201cdiscuss sensitive security matters,\u201d also said a truce would be the most effective way to secure the release of the Israeli hostages. <\/p>\n
Former Israeli National Security Advisor Eyal Hulata, who according to the Times maintains regular communication with \u201csenior miliary officials,\u201d spoke on the record, saying, \u201cThe military is in full support of a hostage deal and a ceasefire \u2026 They believe that they can always go back and engage Hamas militarily in the future.\u201d <\/p>\n
Faced with a \u201cforever war\u201d scenario, four of the officials interviewed by the Times agreed with Hulata that \u201ckeeping Hamas in power for now in exchange for getting the hostages back seems like the least worst option for Israel.\u201d <\/p>\n
But in a statement, Netanyahu said, \u201cI do not know who these anonymous sources are, but I am here to make it unequivocally clear: This will not happen. The war will end once Israel achieves all of its objectives, including the destruction of Hamas and the release of all of our hostages.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThe government directed the IDF to achieve these war objectives and the IDF has all the means to achieve them. We will not capitulate to the winds of defeatism, neither in The New York Times nor anywhere else. We are inspired by the spirit of victory.\u201d <\/p>\n
The report was published as the situation in Israel\u2019s north remains extremely tense, with the Israeli military and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah ramping up cross-border attacks, which risk boiling <\/strong>over into a full-scale war. <\/p>\n \u201cThey (the IDF) understand that a pause in Gaza makes de-escalation more likely in Lebanon,\u201d Hulata told the Times. <\/p>\n \u201cAnd they have less munitions, less spare parts, less energy than they did before \u2014 so they also think a pause in Gaza gives us more time to prepare in case a bigger war does break out with Hezbollah,\u201d he is quoted as saying. <\/p>\n When asked by the Times if it supported a truce, the IDF released a statement that didn\u2019t answer the question directly. <\/p>\n \u201cThe IDF is determined to continue fighting to achieve the goals of the war to destroy the military and governmental capabilities of Hamas, the return of the hostages and the safe return of the residents in the north and south to their homes.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cSo far, significant achievements have been made in fighting in Gaza, the IDF will continue to fight Hamas everywhere in the Gaza Strip, along with continuing to promote war readiness in the north and a defense effort at all borders,\u201d it added. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the idea of starting a ceasefire in Gaza…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4984,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}