PM: I’ve not budged a millimeter from our proposal for a deal, but Hamas sought to make 29 changes

The war will only end when all of Israel’s aims have been achieved, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterates, stressing: “We cannot give up on this victory.”

He says, “Many ask ‘when will this war finish’ and my response is clear and unambiguous. It will finish only when obtain all the goals of the war and not one moment before. Victory will be achieved when we eliminate the governance and military capabilities of Hamas, when we return all our hostages home, when we ensure that Gaza won’t be a threat to Israel anymore and when we return our residents in the south and north safely to their homes. That is total victory, that is the victory which will restore Israeli deterrence and send the message to all our enemies that the price for harming us is intolerable for them.”

In recent weeks, he says, “we are seeing clear cracks in Hamas, under the powerful blows we are dealing it. We are seeing changes, we are seeing weakness.

Today’s strike will contribute to this, he says, “whatever the results turn out to be.”

“Hamas commanders are hiding underground, they are cut off from their forces on the ground. The Gazan population is understanding more and more the size of the catastrophe that Hamas — which many of them supported — brought upon them.”

He adds: “We will continue to strike the terrorists with unprecedented power until they are totally eliminated. Our forces are advancing all across Gaza, in Rafah, in Khan Younis, in Shajayia, in the Philadelphi Corridor. We are reaching every place from where the terrorists came on October 7, we are getting there, we are fighting, and we are winning.

Turning to the 120 hostages, Netanyahu says they are foremost in Israel’s thinking, and that “we have a moral obligation to return them all home.”

So far, 135 have been returned, thanks to the combination of military pressure and determined diplomatic positions, he says. “Only through this double pressure will we secure the release of all the remaining hostages.

Responding to what he says are “endless briefings from anonymous sources,” Netanyahu says: “I’ve not moved a millimeter from the proposal that President Biden praised. I don’t add conditions. And I don’t remove conditions. But I also don’t let Hamas move a millimeter.

“You should know: Hamas wanted to introduce 29 changes to the proposal. And I said to the negotiating team and to the Americans: Not so much as a single change.”

He adds, nonetheless, that “within the framework of this proposal,” he is insisting on four “fundamental” conditions that are contained in the proposal.

Repeating the terms he spelled out on Thursday, he specifies that these are: Israel’s right to “continue the war” until all its goals are achieved; to prevent weapons smuggling from Egypt — which requires “our ongoing control on the Philadelphi Route and Rafah Crossing”; to prevent the return of armed terrorists and weapons to northern Gaza; and, finally, to return as many living hostages as possible “already in the first phase of the proposal.”