Netanyahu is unequivocal about ceasefire and hostage agreement with Hamas: ‘There’s not a deal in the making’
CNN
By Mick Krever, CNN
(CNN) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday was as clear as he has ever been about how he views a ceasefire and hostage agreement with Hamas.
“There’s not a deal in the making,” he told Fox News. “Unfortunately, it’s not close.”
He denied reports – by CNN and others – that the US Administration believes that an agreement is 90% completed.
“It’s exactly inaccurate. There’s a story, a narrative out there, that there’s a deal out there.”
Hamas “don’t agree to anything. Not to the Philadelphi Corridor, not to the keys of exchanging hostages for jailed terrorists, not to anything. So that’s just a false narrative.”
Netanyahu is facing mounting accusations that he has purposefully blocked a deal with Hamas. The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, citing a document it obtained, reported that Netanyahu in July effectively spiked a draft hostage and ceasefire deal by introducing a raft of new, eleventh-hour demands.
Several news outlets, including CNN, have reported on the late July demands made by Netanyahu, but this is the first time the Israeli document has been obtained in full.
In the Fox News interview, Netanyahu rejected allegations that he has obstructed a deal.
“The obstacle to the end of this war is Hamas. The obstacle to the release of hostages is Hamas. The ones who butchered in a sling, murdering six people in cold blood, riddling them with bullets and then firing bullets into their heads is Hamas. It’s not Israel. It’s not me.”
Netanyahu was also questioned about reports that the families of American hostages still held by Hamas are lobbying the US Administration to unilaterally seek their loved ones’ release.
“I don’t know,” he said. “You know, I don’t judge the families. They’re going through enormous anguish.”
Hamas, meanwhile, has accused Netanyahu of using “evasions and deceptive manoeuvres” to avoid reaching an agreement on a ceasefire.
The head of the organization’s negotiating team, Khalil Al-Hayya, said in a speech released on Telegram that the “series of evasions and deceptive manoeuvres practiced by Netanyahu to evade the obligation to reach an agreement on a ceasefire is now fully exposed to the mediators, the American administration, global public opinion, and even the (Israeli) public.”
Al-Hayya said Hamas insisted that “any agreement must include a comprehensive cessation of aggression against our Palestinian people, a complete withdrawal from Gaza including the Philadelphi Axis, the freedom of return for the displaced, relief for our people, reconstruction of what the occupation destroyed, leading to the achievement of a serious and genuine prisoner exchange deal.”
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CNN’s Abeer Salman and Tim Lister contributed to this report.
