PM told cabinet a partial hostage-ceasefire deal with Hamas ‘not on the table’ – reports

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his stance during last night’s security cabinet meeting that a partial ceasefire and hostage-release deal with Hamas is “not on the table,” according to Hebrew media reports.

According to the reports, during the six-hour cabinet session, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir pushed for an official vote against accepting any partial frameworks for a deal, to which Netanyahu replied: “There is no need for a vote. It is not on the table.”

Reports quote Netanyahu as saying during the meeting that United States President Donald Trump has urged him not to accept any partial deals with Hamas and to instead fight the terror group “with full force.”

“Forget the partial deals. Go in with full force and finish this,” the premier reportedly said Trump told him.

Before the security cabinet meeting, Channel 12 news cited unnamed sources as saying Trump was increasing pressure on Netanyahu to move more rapidly toward defeating Hamas, after losing faith in the efficacy of ceasefire and hostage release talks.

In response to the premier’s remarks, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum writes in a statement that Netanyahu “is opposing the very method he initiated,” by rejecting partial frameworks which he formerly agreed to, and that “this is not a negotiation strategy, it is a strategy of obstruction.”

The forum accuses Netanyahu of “sacrificing the hostages and the soldiers on the altar of his political survival, while there is a concrete proposal on the table,” referring to the phased hostage-release and ceasefire framework Hamas agreed to last month, which is said to be nearly identical to a US proposal that Israel previously agreed to.

The forum argues that the current framework “could evolve into an agreement” that would return all the hostages and end the war.

However, the proposal was reportedly not discussed by the security cabinet last night, as Netanyahu pushes forward with the cabinet-approved plan to conquer Gaza City in October, aiming only for a comprehensive deal that would release all the hostages and end the war on Israel’s terms.