Israel is moving step by step towards eliminating the Palestinian Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday, listing the key successes of the armed forces.
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“We are striving with all our might to overthrow the Hamas regime and eliminate its military potential, and we are making progress in this… We are approaching this step by step,” Netanyahu said at a meeting with associations of Israelis whose loved ones died during the fighting in the Gaza Strip and were kidnapped by Palestinian radicals.
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To confirm his words, the prime minister mentioned the liquidation of the head of Hamas’s military wing, Muhammad Deif, the seizure of the Philadelphia corridor separating the Gaza Strip and Egypt, as well as the establishment of control over the Rafah checkpoint located there.
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Speaking about efforts to free Israeli hostages who have been held in the Palestinian enclave for more than 300 days, Netanyahu stated the goal of releasing as many hostages as possible in the first stage of a possible deal with Hamas. At the same time, he said, it is imperative to ensure the preservation of Israel’s strategic security interests, which, in particular, include control over the Philadelphia Corridor. According to Israeli data, Hamas smuggled large quantities of weapons through underground tunnels built in this border strip.
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Last week, talks on a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip were held in Doha with the participation of Qatar, Egypt, the United States and Israel. The leadership of the Hamas movement refused to participate in the negotiations due to the lack of specifics on the terms of the truce.
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A joint statement from the United States, Qatar and Egypt, released by the office of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, said mediators had presented Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement with a ceasefire proposal that would reduce differences between the parties. According to the statement, the talks held on Thursday and Friday in the Qatari capital Doha were serious and constructive and took place in a positive atmosphere. The statement said senior government officials from Egypt, the United States and Qatar would meet in Cairo before the end of next week in hopes of reaching an agreement under the terms proposed on Friday.
