Israeli Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu (C) attends a session to elect the new speaker of the Knesset at its Plenum Hall in Jerusalem on Dec. 13, 2022. (Credit: AFP)
Addressing a closed session of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly stated that he believes Hamas does not currently want a cease-fire deal and argued that putting pressure on Hezbollah in the north could help force Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar to the table, according to reports in Israeli media.
The prime minister denied “fake reports” that he was responsible for preventing an agreement with Hamas, which would have freed dozens of Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza. He claims that Hamas rejected all American proposals, which he says he accepted.
U.S. President Joe Biden first presented a U.S.-drawn cease-fire plan in May, saying that Israel had already agreed to it and it was in Hamas' hands, despite no word on Israel's approval from the country's media. A week later, Hamas dropped one of its key demands — that Israel first agree to a permanent cease-fire before signing a deal — and accepted the cease-fire proposal. A week after that, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution in support of the American cease-fire plan, which Hamas also publicly accepted, but before the month was out, Netanyahu had already walked-back his initial agreement saying he would only agree to a "partial deal."
Netanyahu doubles down on controversial reports in Jewish media
Also during the Knesset meeting, Netanyahu addressed widely discredited reports in the German newspaper Bild and the British Jewish Chronicle (JC) — the world's oldest Jewish newspaper — that claimed Yahya Sinwar had plans to escape Gaza through the Philadephi Corridor and flee to Iran, taking Israeli hostages with him.
Netanyahu told a press conference in September that he was refusing to withdraw Israeli forces from the corridor, thus stalling a hostage deal, because he believes Hamas could "easily smuggle hostages out."
The next day, secret documents claiming to prove this hypothesis were conveniently reported in the JC by a freelance journalist who was later discovered to have dubious credentials. An Israeli army spokesperson knocked down the report, calling it "baseless," and the newspaper, which has been accused of drifting to the right under its latest editor-in-chief, removed all of the articles published by the journalist, who it turned out had "no discernible journalist track-record," according to a Guardian report.
Netanyahu, however, told the Knesset that the reports were authentic, that the documents cited in the reports were found in a tunnel in Gaza and that no associate of his was connected to the publications. Questions have been raised regarding the ownership of JC, according to the Guardian report.
Not interested in an 'all out war'
Netanyahu evaded a question during the committee hearing about whether he intends to replace Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Reports of his plans to do so have circulated in Israeli media for months now, but his rumored choice replacement, New Hope chairman Gideon Sa’ar, has denied several times that any discussions of the sort are underway.
Netanyahu told the committee that "power relations must be changed" regarding the conflict with Hezbollah in northern Israel, Haaretz reported. He reiterated that Hezbollah must be distanced from the Israeli border. However, he added that he is not interested in an all-out war. He also said that he believes half of all the hostages held in Gaza are still alive. The Israeli army as announced the deaths of 35 of the 101 hostages that remain in the besieged Strip.
According to the Israeli prime minister, the International Criminal Court (ICC) is likely to issue arrest warrants for him and Gallant soon.