The war in Gaza will not end until Hamas is defeated, Israel said Saturday, contradicting terms for a cease-fire endorsed Friday by President Joe Biden and cautiously welcomed by Hamas.
Biden said Friday a peace deal would involve an initial six-week cease-fire with a partial Israeli military withdrawal, and the release of some hostages, while "a permanent end to hostilities" is negotiated through mediators.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office on Saturday dismissed any idea that Israel would agree to a permanent cease-fire before "the destruction of Hamas' military and governing capabilities," saying such a proposal is "a non-starter."
Two Israeli ministers, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Saturday they would bring down Netanyahu’s government if he were to agree with Biden’s proposal.
Hamas said Friday it was ready to engage "positively and in a constructive manner." But senior official Mahmoud Mardawi said in a Qatari television interview the group had not yet received the details of the proposal.
"No agreement can be reached before the demand for the withdrawal of the occupation army and a cease-fire is met," he said.
Hamas’s terms call for an end to the war and Israel’s full troop withdrawal from Gaza.
Israel has said it will only suspend the war temporarily in exchange for hostages and then resume its campaign to eliminate Hamas.
President Biden also said the U.S. proposal "creates a better 'day after' in Gaza without Hamas in power." He did not detail how that might be achieved, and the Iranian-backed Islamist group has given no indication it would step aside or disarm voluntarily.
The families of the hostages pressed Israel and Hamas to agree to the deal, as did the three peace talks mediators, U.S., Egypt and Qatar, saying it “offers a road map for a permanent cease-fire and ending the crisis.”
Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani expressed hope Saturday that all parties will deal positively with the principles of Biden’s Gaza cease-fire proposal.
Al Thani made the remarks during a phone call with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Qatar's state news agency said.
U.S. peace proposal
Biden’s three-phase cease-fire deal would begin with a six-week temporary pause in fighting, which he said would lead to a more permanent cessation of hostilities with Hamas.
The first phase would include a “full and complete cease-fire,” Biden said in remarks at the White House on Friday. That would mean the withdrawal of Israeli forces from all heavily populated areas of Gaza, the release of some hostages, including women, the elderly, the wounded and American citizens, in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.
Additionally, Israel would allow more humanitarian assistance into Gaza and the return of Palestinian citizens to their homes and neighborhoods in all areas of Gaza, including in the north.
After the initial six-week pause in phase one, phase two would see Israeli forces withdrawing completely from Gaza, in exchange for the release of all remaining hostages held by Hamas, including male Israeli soldiers.
“I’ll be honest with you, there are a number of things to be negotiated to move from phase one to phase two,” Biden cautioned.
The president said that as long as negotiations continue, the cease-fire would hold, even if talks dragged out past the initial six weeks, He said mediators from the United States, Egypt and Qatar would continue until all parties are in agreement. And as long as Hamas lives up to its commitments, Biden said, the Israelis have agreed to turn the temporary pause into a cessation of hostilities “permanently.”
In the third and final phase, a “major reconstruction plan for Gaza would commence, and any final remains of hostages who've been killed will be returned to their families.”
While Biden described the plan as a “comprehensive new proposal” by Israel, except for the maintenance of a cease-fire while talks are ongoing, the plan does not appear to be fundamentally different from a past proposal that Hamas accepted, and Israel rejected.
Many details about the implementation of the agreement remain unclear. Biden envisioned the deal leading to a potential “historic” normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia, but it is not clear how and when this will be achieved.
There is also lack of clarity as to who will govern Gaza, said Gerald Feierstein, director of the Middle East Institute’s Arabian Peninsula Affairs Program.
“If there is a firm principle that Hamas itself will not be the governing authority in Gaza after Israeli withdrawal, if they're not going to provide security, then who is? What exactly is the nature of a follow-on Palestinian authority?” he said to VOA.
Since Hamas launched a terror attack October 7 on Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking roughly 250 hostages, Israel has embarked on an offensive to eliminate Hamas from Gaza. In recent weeks, Israel says its forces have killed 30,000 people, the majority of them combatants. The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza says 36,284 people have been killed, most of them women and children, but does not estimate how many of the dead were combatants.
United Nations correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report. Some material was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
