As the cabinet session continues into Shabbat, Channel 2 reports that there is no likelihood of ministers voting for a ceasefire deal that does not ensure that the tunnels are destroyed.
Ministers also unanimously oppose any deal that would grant Hamas enhanced status in subsequent negotiations over its demands.
Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz addresses the seventh Annual INSS conference in Tel Aviv, Wednesday, January 29, 2014 (photo credit: Gideon Markowicz/Flash90)
Channel 2 describes the Kerry proposal as being for a “humanitarian ceasefire” for seven days, during which the sides’ conflicting demands would be negotiated. The TV report notes that there is little chance that the radically different positions of Israel and Hamas could be reconciled in many weeks, never mind one week.
It also says that ministers Avigdor Liberman (foreign) and Yuval Steinitz (intelligence and strategic affairs) want the Gaza operation expanded to bring down Hamas.
Channel 2 quotes a senior IDF officer saying that the army believes it has found most but not all of Hamas’s cross-border tunnels, and is gradually destroying them. This officer say the IDF is gearing up so that it can continue to demolish the tunnels from outside the Strip — where they emerge inside Israel — if troops are ordered to withdraw from Gaza before their work there is finished.
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