From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, December 5, 2023
Netanyahu says humanitarian aid doesn’t weaken leverage for hostage releases
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Still taking questions, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is asked about Israel allowing additional humanitarian aid and fuel into Gaza, and whether that reduces Israel’s leverage over Hamas regarding hostages.
He says that “the main card” Israel has to return the hostages is the war effort and the ground operation, and that the humanitarian aid supports that.
“There is no contradiction” between the war effort and the accompanying humanitarian aid, as it all combines to help regarding the hostages, the prime minister says.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant says he told the IDF and the coordinator of activities in the territories to close off “the electricity, the water and the fuel [that Israel supplies to Gaza], and halt the entrance of workers” on October 7. He was moving, he said, toward severing all Israeli government responsibility for Gaza.
When the ground operation began, Gallant says, he knew that the pressure was the path to bring home the hostages.
The ground operation requires and enables humanitarian aid, he says — “minimal humanitarian aid in order to enable the military pressure.”
Regarding letting fuel into Gaza, as Israel is doing, Gallant says that, in return, Israel has the “right to demand” that Hamas honor its obligation to allow the Red Cross to visit the hostages or at least convey medicines and other such requirements.
The Times of Israel Community.