Netanyahu: No End to War Without Hostages Freed, Hamas Defeated
IDF hits terror targets in Yemen, local sources claim Houthi leadership targeted.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on Saturday night, restated his government’s position on ending the military operation against the Gaza-based terrorist group Hamas.
All Israeli hostages must be released in a single phase, Prime Minister Netanyahu said while opening a cabinet meeting. “We will agree to an agreement only if all the hostages are released in one phase and according to our terms,” he declared.
According to the Israeli leader, the military operation, which began in the wake of the October 7 massacre, will only end with the disarmament of Hamas’s terrorist force and the demilitarization of Gaza. “We insist that not only must Hamas be disarmed, but also that Israel will enforce the demilitarization of the Strip,” he added, listing his terms.
We insist that not only must Hamas be disarmed, but also that Israel will enforce the demilitarization of the Strip over time by continuous action against any attempt at rearmament and reorganization by any terrorist element whatsoever.
— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) August 17, 2025
Despite Prime Minister Netanyahu’s efforts to negotiate a deal, Hamas has so far refused to release the remaining hostages while calling for a ‘permanent’ ceasefire and complete Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza.
The ceasefire without disarming Hamas will only invite future terror attacks on Israel, the prime minister noted. The Gaza-based terrorist group “wants us to completely leave the entire Strip, from north to south,” he said. “This way it would be able to reorganize, rearm and attack us again.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s remarks were posted on his official website:
Our ongoing security control in the Strip is only one of our conditions for concluding the war, conditions that Hamas is refusing to accept. We insist that not only must Hamas be disarmed, but also that Israel will enforce the demilitarization of the Strip over time by continuous action against any attempt at rearmament and reorganization by any terrorist element whatsoever.
Hamas is demanding the complete opposite. It wants us to completely leave the entire Strip, from north to south, including the Philadelphi Corridor that prevents smuggling and the security perimeter that protects our communities. This way it would be able to reorganize, rearm and attack us again. Hamas would again be able to come in its pickup trucks and with its monstrous murderers up to the fence and threaten Nir Oz, Kisufim and Sderot all over again.
Those who are calling for an end to the war today without defeating Hamas, are not only hardening Hamas’s stance and pushing off the release of our hostages, they are also ensuring that the horrors of the October 7 will recur again and again, and that our sons and daughters will need to fight again and again in an endless war. Therefore, both to advance the release of our hostages and to ensure that Gaza will never again constitute a threat to Israel, we must complete the work and defeat Hamas.
With Hamas refusing to release the remaining hostages, the Israeli military operation in Gaza was entering “the next phase,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of the General Staff, Lt. General Eyal Zamir, announced on Sunday.
The focus of the renewed military offensive will be the Hamas-infested stronghold of Gaza City. “Today we are approving the plan for the next phase of the war,” Lt. General Zamir said. “We will maintain the momentum of Operation “Gideon’s Chariots” while focusing on Gaza City. We will continue to strike until the decisive defeat of Hamas, with the hostages always at the forefront of our minds.”
According to the IDF chief, the operation in Gaza will continue till Hamas is defeated decisively. “The IDF will deploy all its capabilities, on land, in the air, and at sea, to strike Hamas decisively,” he added. “[W]e will continue to enhance the strikes against Hamas in Gaza City until its decisive defeat.”
IDF hits terror targets in Yemen, local sources claim Houthi leadership targeted
With the Iran-backed Houthis terrorist group continuing to fire missiles at Israel, the IDF struck terror targets in Yemen’s capital of Sanaa.
“The IDF struck from a distance of 2,000 kilometers from Israel, deep inside Yemen, targeting an energy infrastructure site that served the Houthi terrorist regime,” the military said in a statement on Sunday morning. “The strikes were conducted in response to repeated attacks by the Houthi terrorist regime against the State of Israel and its citizens, including the launching of surface-to-surface missiles and UAVs toward Israeli territory.”
The IDF carried out a long-range strike near Sanaa, Yemen, targeting an energy infrastructure site used by the Iranian-backed Houthi terrorist regime. The operation, conducted from a distance of 2,000 kilometers, struck facilities that supported repeated Houthi attacks on Israel,… pic.twitter.com/bIflyKNv3F
— ILTV Israel News (@ILTVNews) August 17, 2025
Some media reports suggest that the operation was carried out by the Israeli Navy. Yemeni sources claim that Houthis’ top terrorist leadership was targeted in the strike, which hit a terrorist-controlled power plant.
“Local reports suggest that Houthi leaders were inside the plant’s control room when it was struck by missiles. Power went and a fire broke out,” the British newspaper Telegraph reported. “It is understood that the Israeli navy carried out the operation.”
🚨 WATCH: The attack was carried out using missile ships that advanced towards Yemen. A similar attack was carried out about two months ago by the IDF Navy at the port of Hodeidah, and last night was the second attack the Navy has conducted in Yemen since the start of the war. https://t.co/jNJVmWRLjO pic.twitter.com/8YemStczok
— Raylan Givens (@JewishWarrior13) August 17, 2025
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Comments
When Netanyahu said “this is never again” he meant it.
Amen
Return hostages, then decimate Hamas
Return corpses, then decimate Hamas.
No action, decimate Hamas by assuming the hostages are dead.
It is a win-win-win situation.
It is a must-win, must-win, must-win situation.
I will be convinced he means it when static lines are replaced by Israel gaining some miles enabling it to distribute food without it just being UN provides it to Hamas.
Sorry but the number of times Netanyahu has said this makes a press conference with little other evidence besides other conferences a joke.
Either send in the troops or end it, a forever war destroys Israel’s ability to exist.
Arrest the Kaplanistas every time they try to shut down the country.
Yes, and give them the treatment the Orange people got 15 years ago. Including being barred from public office for 7 years, like Moshe Feiglin was. Charge Ehud Barak with insurrection. And the entire Supreme Court.
On another w, the evil dark is at it again
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2025/08/17/zelensky-declares-impossible-for-ukraine-to-give-up-territory-to-russia-doubles-down-on-ceasefire-demand/
If only the utterly despicable, perfidious, feckless, meek, submissive, emasculated, morally bankrupt and stupid Australian, Canadian, French, Irish, British, Dutch, Norwegian and Spanish leftist dhimmis and appeasers possess the integrity and moral clarity to back Israel in this war, then the war would likely have ended, months ago.
The Hamas thugs survive only because they are coddled, funded, enabled and protected by idiotic and evil appeasers and enablers among European, Canadian and Australian, leftist dhimmis and American Dhimmi-crats.
“We insist that not only must Hamas be disarmed”
A meaningless demand. Like Trump demanding that the cartels be disarmed. Even the arms of them already inside the US. Just can’t be done.
You’re right, but, the demand must still be publicly stated, because living next door to a genocidal, Islamofascist terrorist state that is hell-bent on destroying Israel and making the middle east Jew-free and Christian-free is clearly a non-starter. Disarmament will be accomplished by killing all of the Hamas thugs and taking away their territory, a piece at a time.
Israel has Sovereignty over Gaza.
The Camp David Accords gave limited self-government to arab muslims in Gaza while requiring the Israeli government to ethnically cleanse it of all Jewish and Christian residents, who they removed by force.
The deal was dubbed “Land for Peace”. The arabs got administrative control of the land, the Israelis were supposed to get peace.
Given that the arabs used their control of this territory as a Terrorist base to attack Israeli civilians, and did so continuously from the 1979 signing of the deal until today, and show no signs of stopping, Israel and the US ought to declare it null and void due to the violations of its terms by the arabs.
Israel should re-establish administrative control over the territory. Govern it directly like any other province of their country. Require the current residents to swear allegiance or be deported. And repopulate with their own citizens.
Defeating the current Hamas fighters will achieve nothing if this isn’t done. The “gaza civilians” are virtually all Hamas or Hamas supporters. If Israel merely forces them to surrender and then leaves, with a non-Hamas but 100% muslim controlled administration that is not subject to the Israeli government, then a day later it will be as bad or worse than it was on 10/7.
Oh, and Trump wants US administrative control over it? Terrible idea. Absolute last place we should be sending Americans. US should be supporting Israeli and facilitating the emigration to muslim countries of any Hamas and Hamas supporters in Gaza. Which is somewhere around 99-100% of the population.
Israel doesn’t have sovereignty in the Gaza Strip. It has never been part of the State of Israel. That’s its choice.
Even the so-called “west bank”, apart from the area within Jerusalem, is not part of the State of Israel, although it ought to be. Again it’s Israel’s choice not to annex its own heartland. A bad choice.
When Britain separated Transjordan from the Mandate for Palestine, the Mandate retained what is now called the West Bank. This remaining portion of the Mandate was meant for Jewish settlement (also including the Gaza Strip). The UN partition plans (1947) ceded the West Bank (and Gaza) to the Arabs (not to Transjordan, but for a separate, independent Arab state), but the Arabs rejected both plans. Jordan held the West Bank following the 1948 War of Independence (and Egypt occupied Gaza), but the “Green Line” that was drawn separating Israeli and Jordanian forces was merely a cease fire line, and not a border. The cease fire agreement stipulated that the cease fire line did not prejudice the territorial claims of either side and explicitly denied the line was a border. Israel retook the West Bank in the Six Day War (as they also retook Gaza from Egypt).
Facts: Transjordan did not include the West Bank, the West Bank remained a portion of the Mandate for Palestine that was reserved for Jewish settlement. Although the UN partition plans gave the West Bank to Arabs (not to Jordan), the Arabs rejected both plans. (The second rejection triggered Israel’s declaration of independence.) Jordan seized the West Bank by force in 1948. The Green Line did not establish a border recognized by anyone, including the warring the parties. Israel seized it back in 1967.
If seizure by force isn’t legitimate, then the territory belongs to Israel. If seizure by force is legitimate, the territory still belongs to Israel.
Dave, Israel is not the successor state to the Mandate, so it didn’t automatically inherit all the Mandate’s territory. It was not created by the Mandate, nor by the U.N., but by its own unilateral declaration of independence, so its borders are what it decides to make them. After the 1949 war, Israel extended its sovereignty over all the territory it held. After the Six Day War it extended its sovereignty to the suburbs that the Jordanians had established east of Jerusalem, and also to the Latrun salient, but not the rest of the so=called “west bank”. In 1981 it extended Israeli law to the Golan Heights, but again not to the “west bank”.
To this day, Samaria, Benjamin, and Judaea remain outside the sovereign territory of Israel, and subject to Jordanian law rather than Israeli. This is simply a fact. Israel could impose its own law there at any time, but it has chosen not to.
That’s simply false.
Gaza was fully part of Israel from 1967 until the Camp David Accords in 1979.
This plus the fact that, by Treaty, all of Israel – including Gaza and the West Bank, has been under Israeli sovereignty since Israel was founded, despite Israel not having control on the ground over parts of it.
Israel specifically retained sovereignty in the Camp David Accords.
The Oslo Accords in the early 1990’s established the Palestinian Authority, but specifically did NOT grant PA sovereignty over any of its territory, including Gaza.
When Hamas fully took administrative control in 2005 after the Israeli withdrawal that year, there was no diplomatic agreement whatsoever that would have changed the fact that Israel had sovereignty.
No, it was not. It was under military administration, and Egyptian law applied.
What treaty are you talking about? And with whom?
No, it did not.
Finally you’re telling the truth. This is absolutely true. Oslo did not establish a state, but only something that might, one day, become a state. If Israel allows it or can’t prevent it.
No, there was no agreement of any kind with Hamas, but Israel never had sovereignty.
I don’t know where you are getting all this nonsense. Israel’s borders are the 1949 armistice line, plus the City of Jerusalem, the Latrun salient, and the Golan heights. That’s all. Anywhere outside those borders Israeli law does not apply. This is a great shame, but it’s a fact.
then a day later it will be as bad or worse than it was on 10/7.
I only disagree with this in that I think it will take a year or more (if Hamas is truly defeated) to make it as bad or worse.
But, otherwise, THIS.
Before Palestine is turned into a Member state, if Israel took responsibility to administer the territory of Gaza, it could then voluntarily turn it over the the UN under the International Trusteeship System set forth in the UN Charter.
The subsequent trusteeship agreement, agreed upon by the states directly concerned, would provide terms of administration and the authority which will exercise the administration, which may be one or more states or the UN itself. If the territory is deemed strategic, the Security Council would have final say.
Of course, it’s pie in the sky with next to zero likelihood, but it is a mechanism for Israel to get out from sole responsibility for the Gaza hot potato.
Why should Israel trust the UN with cleaning latrines, never mind putting it in charge of assuring a new terrorist state isn’t created in Gaza?
Also, why should Israel allow the UN to run Gaza, when, under the terms of the original UN mandate to create Israel, Gaza belongs to Israel?
And, we don’t allow the UN to run anything in our country; why should Israel?
There was never any “UN mandate to create Israel”. Israel was not created by the UN, or by anyone else, but by its own people declaring independence, just as the USA was. And its territory has never included the Gaza strip.
The British Mandate for Palestine included Gaza. Gaza was seized by Egypt during the ’48 war, and taken by Israel in ’67. It never belonged to anyone known as “Palestinians” and, before being unilaterally surrendered by Israel, the only people to whom the Strip belonged acquired the territory by conquest.
Arguably, Israel’s claim was stronger because it was part of the Mandate for Palestine. Egypt had no legitimate legal claim. Ultimately, both parties seized the Strip by force at one time or another, but Israel’s seizure of the Strip recovered territory it was supposed to have controlled following the end of the Mandate. The fact that Egypt was able to take control of it during the ’48 war did not prejudice Israel’s claim. An argument that it became definitively Egyptian by its seizure is also an argument for the Strip becoming definitively Israeli by Israel’s seizure.
All this is true. But it does not make the strip part of Israel.
There was no “supposed to have controlled”. As I have already told you, Israel is not a successor state to the Mandate. It inherited nothing from the Mandate. Its territory is that which it established by force of arms during the 1947-49 war, as it has adjusted it from time to time. It never claimed sovereignty of the Gaza strip, which remains not part of any state. Israel has a legitimate claim to it, but so far has chosen no to exercise that claim.
There is no such argument, since Egypt did not claim it either. During the 19-year Egyptian occupation it was not part of Egypt, which is why Egypt refused to accept it in the Camp David talks. Egypt insisted on receiving every last inch that had been under its sovereignty, including even Taba, but not Gaza which had not been under its sovereignty in the first place.
Israel unilaterally surrendered the Strip to the Palestinians in 2005. It was supposed to lead to peace, but we’ve seen the folly of that idea. Islam knows only war. The Arabs are very lucky to have Israel, otherwise they’d be consumed by wars against each other.
Israel gave up full administrative control over Gaza when they withdrew in 2005.
There was no change at all in the fact that Israel retained sovereignty.
If they had, a new country would have been born. And we all acknowledge that that never happened (despite what Macron said just recently).
No, it did not retain sovereignty, because it never had sovereignty in the first place.
Israel didn’t hand it over to Hamas but to the PA. Hamas then took it over by a bloody coup against the PA. And the PA is controlled by the Oslo Accords, which specified that neither party may change the status quo by asserting sovereignty over the Territories. Not Israel, not the PA, and certainly not Hamas, whose rule is illegal.
No End to War Without Hostages Freed, Hamas Defeated
Yes, well, that is the whole point of war – to defeat your enemy. Particularly one that went to war against you to begin with.
I’m glad this is finally being said.