Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that compromise on full Israeli control is seen as “contrary to a Palestinian state.”
Netanyahu released his statement on social media a day after his first conversation with Biden in nearly a month. The US president said that “there are a number of types of two-state solutions,” but the offer was firmly rejected by the Israeli prime minister.
Rather, Netanyahu reiterated his intention to fight until he had achieved “complete victory” and Hamas was no longer a threat, but did not explain how this would be achieved.
Yet that aspiration is not universally shared. Consequently, thousands of Israelis protested in Tel Aviv to demand new elections, while others demonstrated outside the Prime Minister’s house, joining the families of more than 100 hostages held by Hamas and other militants. They fear that Israeli military action is further endangering the lives of the hostages.
A member of Israel’s military cabinet, former Israeli army chief Gadi Eisenkot, called a ceasefire the only way to secure the hostages’ release, implying criticism of Israel’s current strategy.
Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the military does not carry out attacks in areas where it knows or suspects there are hostages, and the army works “in all possible ways to bring them home.”
Netanyahu, on the other hand, insists that the only way to secure the return of the hostages is to defeat Hamas militarily. More than 100 hostages, mostly women and children, were released during a brief November truce in exchange for the release of Palestinian women and minors imprisoned in Israeli jails. Israel said more than 130 hostages remain in Gaza, but only about 100 are believed to be alive.
A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on the US to recognise the Palestinian state:
It is time for the United States to recognise the state of Palestine, not just talk about a two-state solution, Nabil Abu Rudeineh said in a statement.
The offensive, one of the most devastating military campaigns in recent history, has destroyed much of the territory and displaced more than 80 percent of its population of 2.3 million. The UN says the Israeli blockade, which allows only a small amount of humanitarian aid into Gaza, has led to mass starvation and disease outbreaks.
The Israeli offensive has caused the deaths of some 25,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres stressed that “the refusal to accept the two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians, and the denial of the right to statehood for the Palestinian people, are unacceptable.”
