Israel’s head of government Netanyahu: “There will be no more Hamas”

While Israel will signal a ceasefire in Gaza and the Islamist Hamas examines a new proposal for the intermediaries, Israel’s head of government Benjamin Netanyahu conjures up the end of the terrorist organization. “I tell you – there will be no more Hamas,” said Netanyahu, according to his office, in a speech in the South Israeli city of Ashkelon. “There will be no Hamastan anymore. We won’t return to that. It is over. We will free all of our hostages,” said Netanyahu. The Islamist organization will be fundamentally “eliminated”.

US President Donald Trump had previously announced that Israel had approved the “necessary conditions” for the conclusion of a ceasefire limited to 60 days in the Gaza War. During this time, the United States would work with all parties to end the war. The Hamas then announced that the intermediaries are checked. You go to the matter “with great responsibility”.

According to Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, there is a large majority for an agreement within the Israeli government that also provides for the release of the hostages. “If there is the opportunity to do so, we must not miss it!” Saar wrote on the platform X. Next week Trump Netanyahu will receive Netanyahu in Washington. According to the US President, it assumes that there will be an agreement in the coming week.

Israel is now ready to record talks about a comprehensive deal for a ceasefire and the release of hostages, reported Israeli media. Even if Hamas agrees – possibly in the next 24 hours – the negotiation process in Katar’s capital Doha or Egypt’s capital Cairo will take time. Between Israel and the Islamists, the United States, Egypt and Qatar – the two Arab countries are primarily in contact with Hamas.

The exact conditions of the mediator’s new proposal are still unclear. The “New York Times” reported, citing an Israeli defense officer and a Palestinian who is close to Hamas, the proposal for a deal provides for the release of ten of the still living hostages and the handover of the bodies of 18 kidnapped in the exchange of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.

According to official Israeli information, 50 kidnapped people are recorded in Gaza, of which at least 20 should still be alive. The newspaper reported that the hostages and the corpses are returned to the hostage and the return of the corpses, in five groups over a period of 60 days.

Three Israeli civil servants have also stated that the recent efforts aimed at giving Hama’s stronger assurances that the temporary ceasefire could pave a way for a permanent termination of the war. After a firm promise that the ceasefire will lead to the end of the war, the demand of the Hamas has so far been one of the central sticking points of previous negotiations.

Netanyahu had stated in the past that he was ready for a temporary ceasefire, but would not end the war permanently as long as Hamas does not give up its rule in the Gaza Strip and its leaders go into exile – conditions that Hamas has so far rejected. The previous point of view of the terrorist organization is that all hostages – the living and the corpses – are only returned if Israel ended the war permanently.

For the time being, the war continues. At least ten people were killed in an Israeli air raid in the Chan Junis area in the south of the sealed coastal area. More than 50 other people were injured, eyewitnesses and employees of the Nasser Hospital reported. A tent was hit with internal displaced persons, it said. The information could initially not be checked independently.

The Israeli army only announced that its troops were in action in the area of ​​Chan Junis and, among other things, had discovered and destroyed an estimated 2.5 kilometer long tunnel, which is about 39 meters deep in the underground. The tunnel route connected the areas of Chan Junis and Rafah in the south. According to Israel’s military, such tunnels serve the fighters of Hamas as underground command centers, retreat and storage rooms as well as transport routes. Hostages are also suspected there.

At another Israeli air raid in the city of Gaza in the north, at least 17 other people were killed. The director of the Indonesian hospital and his family were also killed in an air raid, explained the health authority controlled by the Hamas. This information could also not be checked independently, and there was also no communication by the Israeli army.

According to the health authority, more than 57,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the beginning of the Gaza War almost 21 months ago. This information makes no difference between civilians and fighters. The war was triggered by the attack by Hamas and other Islamist terrorist organizations to Israel on October 7, 2023, in which around 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 deported to Gaza as hostages.