Netanyahu Responds to Gaza: “Nobody Will Order Me to Do It” | News, Sports, Jobs

PARENTS JONATHAN POLIN and Rachel Goldberg and sisters Orly and Leebie speak during Monday’s funeral in Jerusalem for murdered American-Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, whose body was found Sunday along with five other dead hostages in the Gaza Strip. (Gil Cohen-Magen/Pool via AP)

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday fended off a new wave of pressure to reach a ceasefire deal in the Gaza Strip after hundreds of thousands of Israelis protested and went on strike and U.S. President Joe Biden said he needed to do more after nearly 11 months of fighting.

In his first public appearance since Sunday’s mass protests, in which many Israelis reacted furiously to the discovery of six more dead hostages, Netanyahu said he would continue to press for a demand that has become a major sticking point in the talks — continued Israeli control of the Philadelphia corridor, a narrow strip along the Gaza-Egypt border where Israel says Hamas smuggles weapons into Gaza. Egypt and Hamas deny that.

Netanyahu called the corridor crucial to ensuring Hamas cannot rearm through the tunnels. “This is Hamas’s oxygen” he said.

He added: “Nobody is more committed to freeing the hostages than I am. … Nobody is going to lecture me on this.”

Israelis poured into the streets late Sunday in grief and anger in what appeared to be the largest protest since the beginning of the war. Families and much of the public blamed Netanyahu, saying the hostages could have been left alive under a deal with Hamas. A rare general strike was held across the country on Monday.

On Monday evening, several thousand protesters gathered in front of Netanyahu’s private home in central Jerusalem, chanting: “Deal. Now.” and carrying coffins draped in the Israeli flag. Scuffles broke out as police snatched the coffins, and several protesters were arrested. Thousands more marched outside Netanyahu’s Likud party in Tel Aviv, according to Israeli media.

But others support Netanyahu’s drive to continue the Gaza campaign, which was sparked by Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel and has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians in the territory. Netanyahu says the attack would force the militants to submit to Israel’s demands, potentially facilitate rescue operations and ultimately annihilate the group.

A key ally, the United States, is showing impatience. Biden spoke to reporters as he arrived at the White House for a meeting in the Situation Room with the U.S. team mediating the negotiations. Asked if Netanyahu was doing enough, Biden said: “NO.”

He insisted that negotiators remain “very close” to the contract by adding, “Hope is eternal.”

Hamas has accused Israel of dragging out the negotiations for months by making new demands, including permanent Israeli control of the Philadelphia corridor and a second corridor through Gaza. Hamas has offered to release all hostages in exchange for an end to the war, a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces and the release of a large number of Palestinian prisoners, including prominent militants — broadly the terms outlined in an outline deal Biden proposed in July.

Netanyahu promised “total victory” over Hamas and blames it for the failure of the negotiations. On Monday, he said he was ready to hold the first phase of a ceasefire — a plan that would include the release of some hostages, a partial withdrawal of Israeli troops and the release of some prisoners held by Israel. But he rejected a complete withdrawal from Gaza, saying he saw no other side that could control Gaza’s borders.

Israeli media report serious disagreements between Netanyahu and top security officials, including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who says it is time for a ceasefire.

The official confirmed that there was a heated argument between Gallant and Netanyahu at a security cabinet meeting on Thursday, with Netanyahu voting to retain control of the Philadelphia corridor.

Gallant cast the lone vote against the proposal, saying Netanyahu favored border arrangements over the lives of hostages. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a closed meeting. Gallant on Sunday called on the security cabinet to reverse the decision.

Khalil al-Hayya, the Hamas official leading the negotiations, told Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera on Sunday evening that Netanyahu was considering keeping the Philadelphia corridor “more important” than releasing the hostages.

Al-Hayya also said that Hamas offered “high flexibility” including reducing the demand to release 500 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for every captured Israeli soldier to 50, and from 250 Palestinian prisoners or each Israeli civilian hostage to 30. He accused Israel of introducing new conditions, including increasing the number of prisoners who would be deported upon release and banning the release of elderly or sick prisoners serving life sentences.

Israeli authorities said six hostages found dead in the Gaza Strip were killed by Hamas shortly before Israeli forces arrived at the tunnel where they were being held.

Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, apparently said Monday that it now has a policy of killing any hostages Israel tries to free. It said that after Israeli forces freed four hostages in a deadly raid in June, it issued new orders to its fighters guarding the hostages on how to deal with them if Israeli forces approached. It said Netanyahu’s insistence on applying military pressure instead of reaching an agreement “this means that (the hostages) will be returned to their families in coffins.”

Three of the hostages killed were among those scheduled to be released in the first phase of the ceasefire outlined by Biden in July, the sources said.

Thousands of people attended the funeral on Monday of one of the six, Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, aged 23. He was one of the most high-profile hostages, and his parents led a high-profile campaign to free the captives, met with Biden and Pope Francis and spoke at the Democratic National Convention last month.

Many sobbed as his mother, Rachel Goldberg-Polin, said goodbye to her son and told him: “My sweet boy, finally, finally, finally you are free!”

Goldberg-Polin, from Berkeley, California, was attending a music festival when Hamas militants swept into southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 250 others hostage. He lost part of his left arm in a grenade explosion during the attack.

A general strike called by Israel’s largest labor union, the Histadrut, ended prematurely after a labor court accepted a government petition calling it politically motivated.

It was the first such strike since the beginning of the war, aimed at closing or disrupting key sectors of the economy, including banking and health care. Some flights from Israel’s main international airport, Ben-Gurion, departed early or were slightly delayed.

“There is no need to punish the entire state of Israel for what is happening, overall it is a victory for Hamas” said one of the passengers, Amrani Yigal.

But in Jerusalem, a resident of Avi Lavi said that “I think it’s fair, it’s time to stand up and wake up, do everything to make sure the hostages come back alive.”

Municipalities in Israel’s populated central region, including Tel Aviv, participated. Others, including Jerusalem, did not.

Of the 250 hostages taken on October 7, more than 100 were freed during a ceasefire in November in exchange for the release of Palestinians held captive by Israel. Eight were rescued by Israeli forces. Israeli forces mistakenly killed three Israelis who escaped captivity in December.

About 100 hostages are still being held in the Gaza Strip, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Hamas militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, during an assault on southern Israel on October 7. Israeli retaliatory offensives in Gaza have claimed the lives of more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials. It did not say how many of them were militants.

The war has forced the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million people to flee their homes, often multiple times, and the besieged area has descended into a humanitarian catastrophe. There are also new concerns about an outbreak of polio.

Meanwhile, Israel continued its six-day raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. AP reporters saw bulldozers tearing up roads. The Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli forces were blocking ambulances from reaching the wounded.

Palestinians in a town outside Jenin held a funeral for a 58-year-old man, Ayman Abed, who was arrested a day earlier and died in Israeli custody. The Israeli military said he died of “cardiac event” but did not provide details. Human rights groups have reported abuses against Palestinians detained by Israel, and the military has confirmed the deaths of at least 36 Palestinians in its detention centers since October.

Israel says it has killed 14 militants in Jenin and arrested 25. Palestinian health officials say at least 29 people have been killed, including five children.

Mohannad Hajj Hussein, a resident of Jenin, reported that electricity and water supplies had been cut off. “We are ready to live by candlelight and we will feed our children with our bodies, teaching them resistance and perseverance in this land” he said. “We will rebuild what the occupation destroyed, and we will not kneel.”

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Associated Press writers Julia Frankel and Melanie Lidman in Jerusalem and Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.