JERUSALEM - Israeli officials pushed back on Monday on elements of the hostage deal proposal presented by US President Joe Biden over the weekend as an Israeli offer, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that there were gaps between that proposal and Israel’s stance. In response, the US doubled down on its assertion that the proposal was an accurate reflection of an Israeli offer. “The claim that we agreed to a ceasefire without our conditions being met is incorrect,” the prime minister reportedly told lawmakers.
Netanyahu said in a Knesset meeting that Israel will not end the war in Gaza until it achieves its three war aims, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel: destroying Hamas’s military and civil governance capabilities, securing the release of all hostages, and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel.
“The proposal that Biden presented is incomplete,” the premier told MKs at a closed-door meeting of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, according to media reports.
He also reportedly said that there are “gaps” between the Israeli version and Biden’s recounting of it.
“The war will stop in order to bring hostages back, and afterward we will hold discussions. There are other details that the US president did not present to the public,” Netanyahu was quoted as saying.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu views a plan outlined by US President Joe Biden for a truce in Gaza and hostage release deal as “partial”, a government spokesman said Monday.
Biden on Friday presented what he labelled an Israeli three-phase plan that would eventually end the fighting, free all hostages held by Palestinian group and lead to the reconstruction of the devastated Gaza Strip without the group in power.
Netanyahu, in a separate statement issued by his office, said that “claims that we have agreed to a ceasefire without our conditions being met are incorrect”.