Israel’s Netanyahu vows to invade Gaza’s Rafah ‘with or without’ hostage deal: NPR

TEL AVIV, Israel – Israel will invade Rafah “with or without a deal” to free the remaining hostages held captive in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Tuesday.

“The idea that we will stop the war before achieving all its objectives is out of the question. We will enter Rafah and eliminate the Hamas battalions there, with or without an agreement, to achieve total victory,” Netanyahu said. he said, according to to a statement issued by his office.

More than a million displaced Palestinians have fled to Rafah, the city along the Gaza Strip’s southern border with Egypt. For months, Israel’s military has vowed to launch an offensive there to combat what it says are Hamas operations and infrastructure located there.

Fearing a high number of civilian deaths and a worsening of Gaza’s already dire humanitarian situation, aid groups and international leaders, including United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, have urged Israel to scale back its plans or cancel the offensive. completely. METERMore than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military offensive since October. 7, say health officials in Gaza.

Meanwhile, Egyptian-brokered negotiations over a possible ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas have raised hopes about the release of some or all of the remaining hostages in exchange for a sequence of ceasefires and the release of Palestinian detainees in power of Israel. (On October 7, Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped about 240 more, more than 100 of whom were freed during a seven-day ceasefire in November.)

Netanyahu, whose position as prime minister depends on a political coalition with ministers even further to his right, now faces increasing pressure from all sides over the possibility of a deal.

“A military attack on Rafah would be an unbearable escalation, killing thousands more civilians and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee,” United Nations Secretary-General Guterres said Tuesday. “I call on all those with influence over Israel to do everything in their power to prevent it.”

On Sunday, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a member of Netanyahu’s war cabinet, said on social media site that accepting an agreement would be a “humiliating surrender” and an “immediate existential threat” to the State of Israel.

“If you decide to raise the white flag,” Smotrich warned, addressing Netanyahu directly, “your government will have no right to exist.”

His hardline colleague Itamar Ben-Gvir, Minister of National Security, made a similar threat on Tuesday. “I warned the prime minister, if God forbid, Israel does not enter Rafah, if God forbid, let us end the war, if God forbid, there will be a reckless agreement,” he said in a video statement. “I think the prime minister understands very well what it will mean if these things don’t happen.”

If right-wing parties withdraw their support for Netanyahu, the prime minister will be forced to form a new coalition to remain in power. (Opposition leader Yair Lapid has previously offered to serve as a political lifeline for Netanyahu in order to reach a deal to free the hostages.)

In Israel, perhaps no voice has been more powerful at the popular level than that of the families of the hostages still held in Gaza. Of those who were kidnapped in October. As of September 7, there are still 133 captives, dozens of whom are believed to be dead, according to the Israeli government.

Hamas has released two hostage videos over the past week, pulling its own lever to increase pressure on negotiations. In the videos, three of the remaining hostages are seen alive, two of them American citizens.

The videos have reignited outrage in Israel. Protests calling for new elections drew massive crowds in Tel Aviv on Saturday.

At a news conference on Monday, the families of two hostages urged Netanyahu and the rest of his war cabinet to reach an agreement.

“If our government and Hamas cannot reach an agreement now, it will be many, many, many steps backwards. And no one can afford it: not Israel, not Hamas, not Gaza, not the Middle East, not the world,” Lee said. Siegel, 72, brother of Keith Siegel, an American-Israeli kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 1. 7 along with his wife, Aviva, who was freed during the November ceasefire.

When Aviva was freed, the family was hopeful that Keith, now 64, would be released soon after. Instead, negotiations failed and Israel resumed its military campaign. Keith has been held hostage for more than 200 days.

Other family members had harsher words for right-wing ministers who have threatened to withdraw their support for the government if Netanyahu rejects a deal to free the hostages.

“I suggest that Smotrich take off his kippah and stop saying he’s Jewish, because those are not the values ​​of Judaism that I grew up with,” said Dani Miran, whose son Omri appeared in a video this week.

Separately, in an English-language video statement released Tuesday, Netanyahu condemned reports that the International Criminal Court is preparing to issue arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials on charges related to the war against Hamas.

“This would be an outrage of historic proportions,” Netanyahu said, evoking the roots of the international criminal court system in the immediate aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust.

Issuing an arrest warrant would be “pouring jet fuel on the fires of anti-Semitism, those fires already burning in American universities and in capitals around the world,” he said.

Information provided by Itay Stern in Tel Aviv.