Netanyahu to Blinken: Israel Will Not End War on Terror Group Hamas in Return For Hostage Deal
PM Netanyahu’s office: “The Rafah operation does not depend on anything.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told visiting U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Israel will not end its military offensive against Hamas in Gaza in return for a hostage deal, The Times of Israel reported Wednesday.
The Israeli prime minister stated that the country is “interested in reaching a deal” to bring back the remaining hostages from Gaza, as well as “determined to topple Hamas” — a reference to an impending operation to capture the last Hamas stronghold of Rafah, the news outlet reported citing an Israeli official.
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s statement comes as Israel on Thursday waits for Hamas’s response to its ceasefire proposal, believed to be the last offer before the IDF launches the operation to capture Gaza.
President Joe Biden has already drawn a ‘redline’ for Israel over entering Rafah, the last-standing terrorist bastion on Gaza’s southernmost tip. During his visit to Israel, “Blinken indicated the U.S. does not support … Netanyahu’s plan for a ground invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah,” CBS News reported Wednesday.
The Biden White House, along with globalist bodies such as the United Nations and the European Union, are pressuring Israel to abandon the plans to liberate hostages by taking Rafah. Hamas’s Gaza-based terrorist leadership is believed to be hiding in Rafah, using Israeli hostages and Gaza civilians as human shields.
The Times of Israel reported PM Netanyahu’s remarks:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday that he would not accept an end to the war in Gaza as part of a potential hostage deal, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel.
“He told Blinken that we are interested in reaching a deal, and determined to topple Hamas,” said the official. (…)
Netanyahu also told Blinken during their meeting in Jerusalem that a hostage deal with Hamas does not mean an invasion of Rafah would be avoided, the Prime Minister’s Office told The Times of Israel.
“The Rafah operation does not depend on anything,” said the PMO. “Prime Minister Netanyahu made this clear to Secretary Blinken.” (…)
The US readout did not say exactly what that position is, but the Biden administration has been firm in its opposition to a Rafah operation without a credible plan to evacuate civilians, even calling a move into the southern Gaza city a “red line.”
Under the proposed hostages-for-terrorist deal, Israel is seeking the release of nearly 130 hostages who still remain unaccounted for after nearly seven months of captivity in Gaza. Israel will also grant a 40-day truce as part of the hostage deal.
“Mediators have proposed a deal that would halt fighting for 40 days and exchange Israeli hostages for potentially thousands of Palestinian prisoners, according to details released earlier by Britain,” the TV channel France24 reported Thursday. “Any such deal would be the first since a one-week truce in November saw 80 Israeli hostages exchanged for 240 Palestinian prisoners.”
IDF hits more Hamas terror targets in Gaza
Despite international pressure, Israel is committed to carrying out operations in Gaza till all military objectives are achieved, IDF’s Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi assured Wednesday. “The offensive operation in Gaza will continue with strength; its objectives are both to restore security to the communities near the Gaza Strip and to bring the hostages back home securely,” Lt. Gen. Halevi said.
Chief of General Staff, LTG Herzi Halevi:
"The offensive operation in Gaza will continue with strength; its objectives are both to restore security to the communities near the Gaza Strip and to bring the hostages back home securely. You are doing an excellent job of operational… pic.twitter.com/Ap6Bo5uvHi— Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) May 1, 2024
The Israeli military struck several Hamas terror targets using ground forces and air support. “IDF ground troops identified and quickly eliminated a terrorist cell adjacent to them in central Gaza using an IAF aircraft and artillery fire,” the military revealed in a press release Thursday. “Throughout the past day, IAF fighter jets struck a large amount of terrorist infrastructure, including operational tunnel shafts and military structures, to assist IDF ground troops.”
Israeli fighter jets and artillery forces struck a tunnel shaft and a mortar launching post in the central Gaza Strip after several projectiles were fired at troops operating in the area, the military says.
The IDF says there were no injuries in the mortar attack yesterday.… pic.twitter.com/MxRsAoEzXA
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) May 2, 2024
Israeli security services bust Islamic Jihad terror cell plotting bombing attacks in West Bank
Besides Gaza, the IDF continues to fight terrorists in the West Bank and along its northern border with Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon.
On Wednesday, Israeli security services busted a Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorist planning bomb attacks in the West Bank. The PIJ, an Iranian-backed Islamic terror group, received funding from Lebanon, a country dominated by Iran and Hezbollah.
A Palestinian Islamic Jihad cell planning bombing attacks in the West Bank on behalf of the terror group's Lebanon branch was recently captured, the Shin Bet security agency announces.
According to the Shin Bet, IDF troops nabbed three Islamic Jihad operatives in the West Bank… pic.twitter.com/Wm20O8WIyy
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) May 2, 2024
The i24NEWS reported:
In a joint operation conducted in January, Shin Bet and IDF forces apprehended the suspects, identified as Ahmad Talib Khalid Abu Bakr (29), Ibrahim Abd Alrahim Jabar Abu Bakr (29), and A’bada Mansour Mohammad Abu Bakr (19), all hailing from Ya’bad. The older two Abu Bakrs were described as senior PIJ operatives within the village.
The investigation revealed that the terrorists were operating under the direction of the PIJ headquarters in Lebanon. Authorities seized operational explosives during the arrests, indicating the advanced stage of their plans.
Ahmad and Ibrahim were found to be in clandestine communication with the PIJ headquarters in Lebanon, receiving funds through cryptocurrency and other means. Furthermore, they were involved in manufacturing remote-detonating explosives for use against IDF forces.
A’bada, the youngest member of the cell, was recruited by Ibrahim and assisted in the production of explosives under his guidance. All three suspects have been indicted in the Military Court in the West Bank.
The Shin Bet emphasized the significance of this operation, highlighting the PIJ’s efforts to orchestrate attacks in the northern Samaria area by recruiting operatives within the West Bank.
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Comments
Israel should do what needs to be done.
Biden’s poll status is of no concern to Israel.
Especially since the vegetable told them to stay out of Haifa.
And then put Blinken on a proper working airplane and send him home or somewhere else.
Put him on a 737 Max.
FJB
FAB
The time for a negotiated peace is no longer present. In fact the truth is there never was a time where a negotiated peace could have been achieved.
Hamas is a cancer in the Middle East and their time has now past for them to become a thing of the past.
As said above, Israel needs to do what it needs to do.
There can’t even be a ‘hostage deal’ because Hamas has admitted that they have NO IDEA how many hostages are still alive or what shape they are in, much less be able to actually deliver them back to Israel.
There are no hostages left to trade, and Israel knows it.
This is really, really hard on the families of the unaccounted-for, but it takes discipline to keep prisoners alive in custody, and Hamas has trained that kind of discipline out of their youngsters.
Hamas murdered children because they were too much trouble
https://x.com/Mendelpol/status/1730535861186355584?s=20
Netanyahu to Blinken: You can’t even run your own life — I’ll be damned if you’ll run mine.
Sunshine go away today…
FJB
FAB
Extermination of Hamas is the only reasonable path to ensure Jew’s safety. Even when that is complete, there is the matter of 71% of Gazans who still approve of Hamas. They will continue to indoctrinate subsequent generations of their children to aspire to murder Jews.
How about moving Qatar US base to Palestine? Qatar seems to be sleazy, double dealing.
The Qatari regime is rotten to the core. They’ve not only sheltered and protected Hamas leadership, they’ve been lavishly funding Islamofascists, and, “Islamic Studies” departments at western universities, the latter of which have predictably served the goal of whitewashing and rationalizing Islamic supremacism, totalitarianism, belligerence and other, innumerable pathologies, while slandering and vilifying Israel.
Oops, fat thumbed the down button when I meant to vote up.
“President Joe Biden has already drawn a ‘redline’…” erasing any remaining doubt whether this is, in fact, the Obama III administration.
Analysts expect this “redline” to have similar effect.
Israel should pay as much attention as Iran did when Biden said Dont.
netanyahu loves his country
the leftists hate everything>>even when they get their way
a hostage to hamas is like black voter to the dems
to be used and abused
The demand-y folks never seem to fill in around their demands:
— Why?
— Then what happens?
— Why is that good?
It’s illuminating to ask those questions for Joey Mumbles’ administration, something like this:
Why — The conflict is fracturing his coalition with an election coming up. Any resolution-y resolution will split some of them off permanently. Just stop, in the status-quo, then they can all pretend its OK enough to vote for Brandon.
Then what happens? — Well, to whom? Joey Mumbles gets elected again, so the sinecures. and rake offs continue. Plus it distracts from other problems It’s miserable for Israelis and Gazans, but nobody cares about them, as has been demonstrated.
Why is this good? — The operation keeps getting its rake offs, at the low, low cost of the lives and welfare of people who don’t look like us, far, far away.
The EU wants to show that they’re still important, and of course better than everyone. The UN that they’re relevant. The screaming meemies just get to enjoy this frisson of ersatz self-satisfaction. Etc.
Inconveniently, Israel seems to have thought through those questions grounded in their own national interest.
Can you be a Trump advisor? His previous ones seem to have been a detriment.
Um, ?thanks?
Kidding aside, it’s hard to go wrong paraphrasing Thomas Sowell, with a dash of Henry Kissinger for context. I just stole well on that one.
Israel doesn’t suffer from a large plague of self-loathing citizens and ungrateful immigrants (there are plenty of grateful ones but they are quickly approaching outnumbered status)
A lot of the pro-Hamas posters on X have “crypto” in their profiles.
Last I heard there were 40 hostages left. It has been 9 months, doubtful if any are left or what condition. Destroy the city and the terrorist.
Israel is only in this mess in the first place because of previous hostage deals. The government should have announced on Oct-8 that it was not interested in any deals, and stuck to it.
Instead it should have announced, a total siege on the entire Gaza Strip, no food, no water, no electricity, no medicine, nothing at all to go in until all hostages were returned; if that resulted in mass starvation and “genocide” the fault would be entirely Hamas’s, and Israel would be OK with that. They could always lift the siege by returning the hostages. But it would have had to stick to it, no matter what. Tell Biden and the ICC to pound sand.
The problem was that too many Israeli politicians, including Netanyahu himself, would be shocked and horrified and would never do something like that. And that if they somehow did get the balls to do it, the IDF might well have refused orders. And the courts would have ordered them to stop it. So what should have been done was politically impossible.
And the rest of the world would have spit-roasted them for that approach. Hamas, of course, would have valued themselves over citizens and hogged and stolen resources to the detriments the civilians.
Might as well get a better accuracy rating on who to kill by going in yourself and doing it.
Israel told Blinken to go crap in his hat, as they should have.
You’d think that by now any Democrat with the ability to feel shame would never use the term “red line” unless referring to the Los Angeles street car system.
Gutless pacifists don’t have red lines, just yellow streaks…
FJB
FAB
I think you just described an extinct species of Democrat.
Besides, when have they not talked big while doing either nothing or the opposite of their rhetoric.
Examples:
“Affordable Care Act”
“Inflation Reduction Act”
“Border funding bill”
Netanyahu should not make the release of the small number of hostages the basis for any deal. He must ignore the traitorous, selfish, Israeli protesters who were probably paid by the US State Department. Israel would be insane to release any of the subhuman Muslim terrorists murderers of Jews for any reason. They shouldn’t allow that prick Blinken into Israel. They have put off attacking the terrorists in Rafah for much too long. Israel must realize no country is an ally of Israel. The world only loves dead Jews. No country is treated like Israel is. The Euro-Nazi nations can screw themselves as they have the blood of six million Jews that enabled and assisted in murdering during the holocaust.