Netanyahu, for his part, said he is “flexible when he can be” and “firm when he needs to be.”
Jerusalem:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that Hamas had rejected all elements of a Gaza ceasefire proposal that would help facilitate the release of hostages.
“Hamas has rejected everything… I hope that changes because I want those hostages out,” Netanyahu told a news conference, casting doubt on the possibility of a breakthrough a day after the State Department said it was “time to finalize that agreement.”
“We are trying to find some area to start negotiations,” Netanyahu said.
“They (Hamas) refused to do so… (They said) there was nothing to talk about.”
Netanyahu has come under increased domestic and international pressure to seal a deal to free Israeli hostages after authorities announced Sunday the deaths of six people whose bodies were recovered from a tunnel in southern Gaza.
On Monday, Netanyahu said Israeli forces would maintain control over the Philadelphia Corridor along the Egypt-Gaza border, and vowed “not to bow to pressure” on the issue.
Hamas, whose unprecedented Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel sparked the war, is demanding a complete Israeli withdrawal from the area as part of stalled talks brokered by the United States, Qatar and Egypt.
At Wednesday's press conference, Netanyahu reiterated his position on the Philadelphia Corridor, saying that giving up control would allow Hamas to bring in weapons and take out hostages and “terrorists.”
“There needs to be some pressure on them, some pressure on them, some pressure on them to release the remaining hostages,” he said.
“So if you want to free the hostages, you have to control the Philadelphia Corridor.”
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters Wednesday that Washington recognized “the very real needs that Israel has to ensure that there can be no smuggling through the Philadelphia Corridor,” but said “we believe there are ways to address” the issue.
Reaching a deal “is going to require flexibility on the part of the Israeli government, just as it's going to require Hamas to ultimately find a way to get to yes,” Miller said.
Netanyahu, for his part, said he is “flexible when he can be” and “firm when he needs to be.”
– The whole matter is unresolved –
He also noted that the debate over the Philadelphia Corridor was not the only point of conflict.
Also left unanswered, he said, were questions about how many Palestinian prisoners would be released in exchange for hostages, whether Israel could veto the release of certain prisoners and where the freed prisoners should go.
“The whole matter is not resolved,” he said.
The Oct. 7 attack by Hamas killed 1,205 people, most of them civilians, including some hostages who died in captivity, according to official Israeli figures.
Of the 251 hostages captured by Palestinian militants during the attack, 97 remain in Gaza, including 33 who the Israeli military says are dead. Dozens of hostages were released during a week-long truce in November, the only one so far.
Israel's retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has so far killed at least 40,861 people, according to the Hamas-ruled territory's health ministry.
Most of the dead are women and children, according to the UN human rights office.
At protests in several Israeli cities this week, Netanyahu's critics have blamed him for the hostages' deaths, saying he has refused to make the concessions needed to reach a ceasefire deal.
US President Joe Biden said this week that he did not believe Netanyahu was working hard enough to free the hostages.
Also on Wednesday, a far-right Israeli minister stepped up pressure on Netanyahu to end Gaza ceasefire negotiations altogether.
“A country whose six hostages are murdered in cold blood does not negotiate with the killers, but ends the talks, stops the transportation of fuel and electricity and crushes them to the point of collapse,” National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir wrote on the social media platform X.
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