PM says cabinet voted to increase pressure on Hamas, terror leaders ‘will be allowed to leave’

As massive protests continue against his government’s policies on Hamas hostages in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tells his cabinet that “military pressure is working.”

“It works because it acts simultaneously,” he says at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting. “On the one hand, it crushes Hamas’s military and governmental capabilities, and on the other hand, it creates the conditions for the release of our hostages.”

The security cabinet last night voted to increase pressure on Hamas, says the premier.

Turning to three Hamas claims against Israel’s negotiating posture, Netanyahu says Israel is continuing to negotiate, but that it is being done “under fire,” which he says makes it effective. “We see that there are suddenly cracks,” he says, though Hamas has yet to agree to Israel’s demands for a new extended ceasefire.

Israel is also willing to talk about “the final stage” of a hostage release-ceasefire deal with Hamas, insists Netanyahu.

“We are ready,” Netanyahu says. “Hamas will lay down its weapons. Its leaders will be allowed to leave. We will ensure general security in the Gaza Strip and enable the implementation of the Trump plan, the voluntary immigration plan.”

Israel “is ready to discuss it at any time,” he says.

The third Hamas lie, according to Netanyahu, is that he doesn’t care about the hostages. “This is what Hamas puts in its propaganda films in order to create division within us,” he argues.

He says that Israel is “committed to bringing back the hostages,” and claims that the combination of military and diplomatic pressure is the only thing that has worked, and “not all the empty claims and slogans that I hear in the [television] studios from the experts.”

Addressing stepped-up attacks in Lebanon, Netanyahu says that Israel “respects” Lebanon and its armed forces, “therefore we demand from them things that you demand from someone you respect.”

“Lebanon is responsible for what comes out of its territory, and it must ensure that… no attacks against Israel come out of its territory,” Netanyahu says, apparently referring to recent rocket fire.

He also thanks the US for carrying out strikes against the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, calling it “a big change.”

“We always value alliances,” he says. “We have an alliance with the greatest power in the world, and it stands behind us there and in other arenas without reservation, and with the full appreciation of the citizens and the government of Israel.”