No ceasefire, no gasoline delivered to Gaza until hostages are freed: Netanyahu

AFP | Gaza                                                

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday there will be no fuel delivered to Gaza and no ceasefire with Hamas unless hostages seized by the Palestinian fighters are freed. Yesterday, the Palestine health ministry said that 10,328 people, adding more than 300 to the figure from Monday, have been killed by Israel’s offensive in the month-long war.

The toll includes more than 4,200 children, according to the ministry. Israeli troops are “in the heart of Gaza City”, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told a news conference yesterday.

The announcement comes as the US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel declared Washington’s opposition to a new long-term occupation of the Gaza Strip by Israel, which vowed “overall security” of the territory following the war.

“We do not support the reoccupation of Gaza,” Patel said.

Hezbollah warned

In a televised statement marking the first month of Israel’s war with Hamas, Netanyahu also warned Iran-backed Hezbollah “it will be making the mistake of its life” if it opens a new front in the war from its base in Lebanon.

The Israel-Hamas war started on October 7 when fighters from Palestine burst out of the Gaza Strip and into southern Israel. According to Israel, Hamas killed some 1,400 people - mostly civilians - and seized more than 240 hostages, in the worst attack on the nation since its founding in 1948.

In response Israel has launched a withering assault on Hamas in the Palestinian enclave it rules, home to some 2.4 million people.

‘Overall responsibility’

In a television interview with ABC News broadcast on Monday, Netanyahu said that his country will take “overall responsibility” of Gaza’s security for an indefinite period after its war with Hamas ends.

“Israel will, for an indefinite period, will have the overall security responsibility,” he said. “When we don’t have that security responsibility, what we have is the eruption of conflict with Hamas on a scale that we couldn’t imagine.”

Ignoring support

Despite growing international calls for a ceasefire from UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and other world leaders, Netanyahu said he did not support one. “There will be no ceasefire — general ceasefire — in Gaza without the release of our hostages,” he said.

“As far as tactical, little pauses — an hour here, an hour there — we’ve had them before.” Israel may agree to pauses to let humanitarian goods into Gaza, or to allow for hostages to leave the besieged Palestinian territory, he added. But Netanyahu said there would be “no entry of gasoline... no ceasefire without the release of our hostages”.

‘Thousands’ of casualties Washington acknowledged on Monday there had been “thousands” of civilian casualties in Gaza, after President Joe Biden previously called into question the validity of numbers published by Hamas.

“As it relates to civilian casualties in Gaza... we know the numbers are in the thousands,” Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Pat Ryder told journalists. 160 children killed each day The World Health Organization (WHO) said an average of 160 children are killed each day in Gaza as a result of the Israel-Hamas war. “The level of death and suffering is hard to fathom,” WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told reporters in Geneva.