JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he has not backed down from his goal of destroying Hamas and told his hard-line governing partners that a cease-fire proposal pushed by U.S. President Joe Biden would meet that goal, or else Israel would return to war, according to local media.
Netanyahu has faced a backlash from ultranationalists in his coalition who have threatened to bring down his government if he agrees to a deal that would end the war in Gaza without eliminating Hamas.
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Biden last week announced what he called an Israeli offer that includes an "enduring cease-fire" and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza if Hamas releases all hostages it is holding. The outline released by the Biden administration does not explicitly talk of removing Hamas from governing Gaza or eliminating it. But in a speech Friday, Biden said Israel's 8-month-old offensive had degraded the militants to a point where they could no longer carry out an Oct. 7 attack.
Netanyahu told the parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday that there are certain "gaps" in Biden's announcement. "Biden spoke about the outline but not all of the details," he said during the closed-door session, according to Israeli media. He said that in the Biden plan, there are built-in measures to ensure all sides are upholding the deal before it progresses to the next stage.
"We reserve the right to return to war," Netanyahu told the committee, according to the media reports.
In a video statement released by his office, Netanyahu said that in efforts to bring back hostages, "we have maintained the goals of the war, first of them the destruction of Hamas."
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"It is part of the proposal," he said.
The text of the proposed cease-fire deal has not been made public. Hamas has said it views the proposal "positively."
Talks on a deal ground to a halt last month. The main sticking point has been Hamas' demand for a complete end to the war and full Israeli withdrawal from all of Gaza in return for all hostages' release, which Israel has refused.
In its Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel that triggered the war, Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people and abducted around 250 others. After a round of releases during a week-long cease-fire last year, Hamas is believed to hold around 100 hostages and the bodies of around 30 others.
Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed more than 36,430 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Its count doesn't differentiate between civilians and combatants.