Ahead of ‘temporary ceasefire,’ PM says Israel has US backing to resume fighting if needed, won’t relent until ‘all war goals completed’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls the first stage of the hostage release deal a “temporary ceasefire,” and says that this is what President-elect Donald Trump has called it too, in his first public comments on the agreement, slated to go into effect tomorrow.

Netanyahu says both Trump and US President Joe Biden stressed that Israel can return to fighting in Gaza if the next stages of the deal are not realized.

Israel will not rest until “all of its war goals are completed,” he says, which includes the return of every single hostage being held in Gaza.

The prime minister says the US has promised Israel will have the weaponry it needs to return to fighting if necessary, and will do so “in new ways and with very great power.”

Netanyahu makes the remarks in a 10-minute video message.

Notably, when first describing the hostage-ceasefire deal, he says that “the cabinet and the government” approved what he calls “the framework for the return of our hostages.”

“In the agreement approved just now, we will get back another 33 of our brothers and sisters — most of them alive,” he says.

He makes no mention at this stage of the further potential phases of the deal, under which the remaining 65 hostages are to be released and a permanent ceasefire instituted in Gaza.

He twice says that he and his wife Sara are praying and working for the return of all the hostages, and says Sara is pouring her heart and soul into the mission, at home and abroad. (She has been in Florida for the last several weeks.)

He says the deal is a result of Israel resisting pressures from outside and in, and of cooperation with the outgoing Biden Administration and the incoming Trump administration.

“President Trump joined the mission to free the hostages from the moment he was elected,” Netanyahu says. “He spoke to me on Wednesday evening and welcomed the agreement.”

“[Trump] rightly stressed that the first stage of the accord is a temporary ceasefire,” the prime minister says. “That’s what he said, ‘A temporary ceasefire’.”

Ahead of the future phases of the accord, says Netanyahu, “we retain significant assets in order to get back all of our hostages and to achieve all the goals of the war.”

“Both President Trump and President Biden gave full backing to Israel’s right to return to fighting if Israel concludes that the negotiations on the second phase are going nowhere,” he specifies. “I greatly appreciate this.”