JERUSALEM, April 7, 2024 (AFP) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said Israel was “one step away from victory” in the Gaza war and vowed there would be no truce until Hamas frees all hostages. He was speaking in a cabinet meeting marking six months of the war that broke out on October 7 after an unprecedented attack on Israel by Hamas militants. “We are one step away from victory,” Netanyahu said. “But the price we paid is painful and heartbreaking.” Speaking as truce talks were expected to resume in Cairo with international mediators, he said: “There will be no ceasefire without the return of hostages. It just won’t happen.” He stressed that “Israel is ready for a deal, Israel is not ready to surrender”. “Instead of international pressure being directed at Israel, which only causes Hamas to harden its positions, the pressure of the international community should be directed against Hamas. This will advance the release of the hostages.” Israel has faced a storm of international outrage over the killing of seven aid workers of the US-based food charity World Central Kitchen in a Gaza air strike on April 1. US President Joe Biden in a phone call with Netanyahu on Thursday demanded an “immediate ceasefire” and hinted at making US support for Israel conditional on curtailing the killing of civilians and improving humanitarian conditions. Netanyahu meanwhile accused Iran of being behind several attacks against Israel “through its proxies”. “Anyone who hurts us or plans to hurt us — we will hurt him. We put this principle into practice, all the time and in recent days,” Netanyahu added. Fears that the war in Gaza could spread have intensified after Iran vowed to hit back for the killing of seven of its Revolutionary Guards in an air strike Monday on the consular annex of its embassy in Damascus. Iran’s leaders have pledged retaliation, and the leader of Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, Hassan Nasrallah, has called the consulate strike a “turning point”. —
Israeli withdrawal from southern Gaza likely just troop ‘refit’: W.House
Israel’s partial withdrawal from the southern Gaza Strip is likely so its troops can “rest and refit,” rather than a move towards a new operation, the White House said on Sunday. “They’ve been on the ground for four months, the word we’re getting is they’re tired, they need to be refit,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told ABC’s “This Week,” though he stressed that it was “hard to know exactly what this tells us right now.” Kirby spoke hours after Israel, which has been under increasing pressure from Washington over the conflict’s spiraling death toll, pulled all its troops out of southern Gaza, including from the city of Khan Younis, according to the military and Israeli media. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) said a “significant force” will continue to operate in the rest of Gaza, which it invaded after an October 7 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas. That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,170 Israelis and foreigners, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures. At least 33,175 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory in Israel’s retaliatory campaign, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry. Kirby said he would let the IDF “speak to their operations.” “As we understand it, and through their public announcements, it is really just about rest and refit for these troops that have been on the ground for four months and not necessarily, that we can tell, indicative of some coming new operation for these troops,” he said.
