Germany’s Scholz meets PM, calls for hostage deal with ‘longer-lasting ceasefire’
Visiting chancellor says war ‘legitimate’ but Gaza death toll ‘too high,’ backs Palestinian state; Netanyahu says Israel can’t accept peace deal that would leave it ‘weak’
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Sunday called for a deal to free hostages held in war-ravaged Gaza accompanied by a “longer-lasting ceasefire,” as warring parties geared up for more talks.
“We need a hostage deal with a longer-lasting ceasefire,” Scholz said during a joint press appearance in Jerusalem alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“We understand the hostage families who say after more than five months, ‘The time has come for a comprehensive hostage deal for saving those who are still captive,'” he said.
Scholz’s visit came the same day Israeli officials were set to meet to discuss the “mandate” of a negotiations team expected to participate in a new round of talks in Qatar aimed at securing a new truce between Israel and Hamas.
Netanyahu is under intense domestic political pressure to secure the release of hostages seized during Hamas’s devastating October 7 onslaught on southern Israel, which started the Gaza war now in its sixth month.
Hamas-led terrorists rampaged through southern communities on October 7, slaughtering close to 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 253 captives to Gaza, where more than half remain.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says 31,645 people in the Strip have been killed in the fighting so far, a figure that cannot be independently verified, and includes those killed by the terror groups’ failed rocket launches and some 13,000 Hamas terrorists Israel says it has killed in battle. Israel also says it killed some 1,000 gunmen inside Israel on October 7.
In Jerusalem, on Sunday, Scholz said Israel was fighting for a “legitimate goal,” however, he said that the Palestinian death toll is “extremely high, many would argue, much too high.”
He called for a “negotiated two-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying, “Terror cannot be defeated with military means alone.”
Earlier on Sunday, Netanyahu said Israeli troops would pursue a planned ground offensive in southern Gaza’s Rafah that has spurred fears of mass civilian casualties, given that the majority of Gazans have sought refuge there.
Scholz voiced concern about what the offensive would mean for civilians.
“The military logic is one consideration, but there is a humanitarian logic as well. How should more than 1.5 million people be protected? Where should they go?”
In his address, Netanyahu said the two leaders had a ”very serious conversation, an important conversation among friends.”
“We also agreed that Hamas has to be eliminated,” Netanyahu said, noting that if the terror group is allowed to stay in Gaza, it will “regroup and reconquer and, as they vowed, repeat the [October 7] massacre again and again and again.”
During the meeting, Netanyahu said his German counterpart asked him to do more to protect civilians in Gaza during the ongoing war and to allow more humanitarian aid for Palestinians to enter the Strip.
Netanyahu noted Israel’s efforts to protect civilians while Hamas uses them as human shields, as well as the challenges of distributing aid within the Strip, given the risks of urban warfare.
He stressed that Israeli troops would not go ahead with plans to invade Rafah — which was approved on Friday — without civilians being able to leave.
“Our goal in eliminating the remaining terrorist battalions in Rafah goes hand-in-hand with enabling the civilian population to leave Rafah. It’s not something that we will do while keeping the population locked in place,” he stated.
He added that a potential peace agreement with the Palestinians “that makes Israel so weak and unable to defend itself” would “set peace backward and not forward.”
Netanyahu has repeatedly railed against the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel after October 7 arguing it would be a prize for terrorism, though much of the international community endorses the idea as the only path to peace.
Scholz also met with President Isaac Herzog, who said they agreed that “the prime objective of this war is to bring our hostages back home,” and emphasized the major, destabilizing role of Iran in the conflict.
“It affects all households in the world because of the Houthis disturbance to the high seas and the transportation of goods and services in the Red Sea and the Middle East. Of course, it has to do with our situation, vis-à-vis Lebanon, and predominantly, it’s a war that was waged by the coalition of Iran. And that is why the coalition that objects to Iran must support Israel in achieving full victory,” Herzog said.
In his remarks alongside the president, Scholz acknowledged that the humanitarian situation in Gaza was “improving,” but said more work needed to be done, while reiterating his hope for a time when Palestinians “can regulate themselves.”
