Yesterday, Beniamin Netanyahu threw not one but two buckets of cold water against those who think that a new truce in Gaza can be agreed upon in the short term between Israel and Hamas. In any case, a temporary ceasefire, because there is no day in which the Israeli Prime Minister completely rules out that the war is going to stop definitively until the fighters of the Islamist organization are eradicated from the strip. And yesterday, in the middle of the Sabbath, was no exception.
At noon, a Mossad statement, released by the premier’s office, reported that the negotiating team of the foreign intelligence service was leaving Doha on Netanyahu’s orders and returning to Israel. With this decision, the near possibility of a new ceasefire receded, after the seven-day truce that broke on Friday.
“Following the impasse in negotiations and the order given by Prime Minister Beniamin Netanyahu, Mossad Director David Barnea has ordered his team in Doha to return to Israel,” the statement said. “The terrorist organization Hamas did not fulfill its part of the agreement, which included the release of all children and women, according to a list delivered to Hamas and approved by this group,” the note continued, reiterating the version offered on Friday by the prime minister. to end the truce.
Before the ceasefire began, on November 24, a team from the Israeli secret services settled in Doha to participate in the negotiation with Hamas for the release of hostages, with the mediation of the intelligence services of Qatar, Egypt and the US. In fact, the directors of Mossad and the CIA personally traveled for a few days – in the middle of the process – to the Qatari capital to direct the talks that culminated in the seven days of truce and the release of 105 hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners in the West Bank.
Late in the afternoon, while the relatives of the hostages demonstrated in Tel Aviv, Netanyahu held a press conference where he insisted that, while ending Hamas, his priority is for all the hostages to return home. And then he threw the second bucket of cold water, saying that he had ordered the troops to “intensify” the offensive.
The premier did not shy away from any question, including one from Haaretz that asked his opinion on a survey that claims that a third of Israelis believe in a conspiracy theory according to which senior government or armed forces officials were involved in the attack. Hamas or knew it beforehand. “There is no conspiracy, there was no conspiracy and there cannot be one. “There are questions that need to be answered: what happened, how it happened, and that will be examined at the end of the war,” Netanyahu responded.
The conservative leader also stated that he will not allow the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) to govern Gaza after the war, something that many countries, such as the US, view favorably. This statement confirms that Netanyahu has a hidden agenda for Gaza that he does not seems to be in line with the will of a large part of the international community to advance the two-state solution. In fact, Netanyahu thanked Washington for its support but said that both governments have “different points of view.”
Yesterday was the second day after the resumption of the war and the bombings left the same images of destruction and death of Gazans as the day before. Many injured children in overflowing hospitals. Given this, the prime minister said that the Government is “working with international organizations to identify safe areas for civilians.” But he also let it slip that Palestinians “raise their children to hate Israel.”
The return of Mossad from Doha is probably due above all to the fact that Hamas’ latest demands are unacceptable to the government. The Islamist group assured yesterday that it will not release more hostages until Israel releases all Palestinian prisoners.
For his part, the Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, elaborated on the reason for breaking the truce and insisted that Hamas “violated the agreement” because “it refuses to release fifteen women and two children” kidnapped. Gallant assured that “Hamas’s morale is low” and that “all the commanders” of this Palestinian guerrilla in the strip “understand what the future holds for them.” The minister added that the organization was wrong to believe “that the Iranians and Hizbullah would come to their aid.”
Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza, was again the target of bombing yesterday, as on Friday. In Jabaliya alone, airstrikes have already killed at least a hundred Palestinians and yesterday, the army claimed that on the outskirts of that town it had found Hamas tunnels under a school.
On the other hand, the alarms sounded again yesterday in the central area of ??Israel due to rocket fire from the strip. All were intercepted by the anti-missile shield but shrapnel from a projectile injured a 22-year-old young man in Holon, south of Tel Aviv.
