Netanyahu says willing to give international force a chance to disarm Hamas, but is skeptical

Israel “will bring back Rani [Gvili] as well,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tells Israel’s ambassadors, referring to the last slain hostage in Gaza who were returned under the first phase of the ceasefire with Hamas. “We are bringing back all the hostages, until the very last one.”

“In the second phase, we are moving to disarmament and demilitarization,” he says.

The US wants to create an international force to accomplish the task, says Netanyahu. “I said, go ahead,” he continues.

“We know that there are certain missions that this force could do,” he says. “There are certain things they can’t do, maybe the main task they can’t do, but we will see.”

“We can do it the easy way, or the hard way,” he says about disarming Hamas. “But in the end it will be done.”

Turning to normalization, he dismisses media reports that certain peace deals cannot happen without Israel doing things first – a likely reference to the Saudi demand that Israel commit to an eventual Palestinian state. “The opportunities are there because of the tectonic changes we made in the balance of power in the Middle East,” he says.

“We no longer have a policy of containment,” says Netanyahu. “We identify a threat, and we act.”

In a possible reference to a potential threat from Turkey in Syria and in the broader region, Netanyahu says, “One power goes down, another rises. I won’t say who I’m referring to, but you can guess. You know very well.”