The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday declared that he plans to go ahead with a long-anticipated and controversial military operation in the Gaza Strip city of Rafah despite recent criticism from several quarters.
This is even as Hamas reportedly claimed there are fewer than 40 women, elderly and ailing hostages who it can account for.
Africa Today News, New York reports that Netanyahu, who has come under increasing domestic criticism over his handling of the six-month-old war against the terror group, told Israelis that “complete victory” over the jihadists “requires entry into Rafah and the elimination of the terrorist battalions there.”
“It will happen, there is a date,” the 74-year-old added without giving further specifics in a video message posted to X.
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According to the report, truce talks involving Israeli and Hamas officials in Cairo were ongoing after CIA Director Bill Burns proposed over the weekend that Hamas submit a list of 40 Israeli hostages who are alive and could be released on humanitarian grounds in exchange for a six-week cease-fire.
Israel’s Channel 12 news reported on Monday that Hamas was trying to negotiate the release of fewer hostages on the grounds it had “no ability to release 40” abductees who fit the initial request by Israeli negotiators.
In another report, the National Security Minister of Israel, Itamar Ben-Gvir has threatened to topple the administration of Netanyahu.
Ben-Gvir said if Netanyahu ends the war in the Gaza Strip without launching an offensive on the southern city of Rafah, his government will be toppled.
Posting on X, Ben-Gvir wrote: “If the Prime Minister decides to end the war without an extensive attack on Rafah in order to defeat Hamas, he will not have a mandate to continue serving as Prime Minister.”
Gvir’s threat comes amid reports of a possible breakthrough in Israel’s indirect negotiations with Hamas to reach a hostage-prisoners exchange deal and a cease-fire.