Netanyahu insists on comprehensive deal for all hostages; won’t end war unless all his demands met

In a statement issued tonight amid reports of a revived Hamas willingness for a phased ceasefire-hostage deal, the Prime Minister’s Office insists on a comprehensive deal in which all hostages are freed at once and all of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conditions are met.

The statement reads: “The Prime Minister’s Office clarifies that Israel will agree to a deal on condition that all the hostages are released in one go, and in accordance with our conditions for ending the war that include the disarming of Hamas, the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip, Israeli control of the Gaza perimeter, and the installation of non-Hamas and non-Palestinian Authority governance that will live in peace with Israel.”

Hamas negotiators in Cairo this week signaled a willingness to come down from demands they made last month that led to the collapse of hostage talks in Doha, an Israeli official and an Arab diplomat familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel yesterday.

There have been multiple reports in recent days of ostensible Hamas flexibility and its possible willingness to return to the so-called Witkoff proposal for a 60-day ceasefire-hostage deal, in which half the living hostages would be released, with provisions for negotiations on a permanent end to the war.

Netanyahu recently received a “dramatic” document from a “professional” source involved in the negotiations, Channel 12 reported yesterday, expressing in writing Hamas’s willingness to reach a partial deal after the terror group long insisted that it would only release additional hostages in exchange for an up-front Israeli commitment to a permanent ceasefire.