Smotrich decries ‘dangerous trap’ as mediators push Israel, Hamas to agree to hostage deal
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich accuses the US, Egypt and Qatar of creating a false equivalence between the hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 and Palestinian security prisoners, after the three mediating countries released a statement on Thursday declaring that “it is time to bring immediate relief both to the long-suffering people of Gaza as well as the long-suffering hostages and their families.”
The statement, signed by US President Joe Biden, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani further stated that “the time has come to conclude the ceasefire and hostages and detainees release deal.”
The mediators created an “imagine symmetry between the Israeli hostages — men, women and children — who were abducted from their beds with terrible cruelty, and despicable terrorists who are serving their sentence for it in prison,” he writes on X, calling the ceasefire and hostage release deal “a dangerous trap.”
“The time has come for the hostages to be released a long time ago,” he continues. “The time has not come to release the abominable terrorists who killed the Jews. And above all else, the time has absolutely not come for a capitulation deal that would stop the war before the destruction of the Nazis of [Hamas] and allow them to recover and return to murdering Jews again.”
He urges Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “not to fall into this trap, and not to agree to even the slightest shift away from the red lines he set recently, which are also very problematic.”
Following the statement from the mediators, Netanyahu’s office announced that an Israeli delegation would fly either to Doha or Cairo for renewed negotiations on August 15.
