Defiant Netanyahu says he secured deal to recover all the hostages, despite those who declared it impossible

In a televised address the day after his government approved a deal to free the hostages and end the war in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stresses that he did not listen to those who argued that it would not be possible to bring the hostages home.

“I believed that if we applied heavy military pressure, combined with heavy diplomatic pressure, we would absolutely be able to return all of our hostages,” he says.

“And that is exactly what we did.”

Netanyahu emphasizes, as he often does, that he faced intense domestic and international pressure — not to go into Rafah, not to take the Philadelphi Corridor, not to operate in other theaters, to end the war and leave Gaza while Hamas, Hezbollah and other enemies were “at the height of their power.”

One consideration guided his decision-making, says Netanyahu: “The security of Israel.”

“That means achieving the goals of the war, including returning the hostages, removing the ballistic and nuclear threat from Iran that endangered our existence here, and breaking the Iranian axis, of which Hamas is a central component.”