Hamas denies rejection of hostage, ceasefire deal, says will deliver answer soon

A senior official in Hamas denied that the terror organization had rejected the hostage and ceasefire proposal set forth in Paris last week, Al Jazeera reported on Sunday evening.

The official claimed that the earlier report from the Saudi outlet Al-Arabiya claiming that Hamas was set to reject the deal was incorrect.

"We are in the final stage of internal consultations with the factions regarding the proposal that we received, and we will respond to it soon," the official reportedly said.

According to the Al-Arabiya report, the terror organization was looking to demand an increase in the number of Palestinian terrorists released from Israeli prisons.

KAN, citing a Hamas source speaking to Al-Quds newspaper, had previously reported that for the time being, it is Hamas’s position that the beginning of a deal has not been reached. The source went on to add that Hamas maintained its insistence that the IDF withdraw from Gaza and provide Hamas with certain guarantees to end the war.

Reportedly, Hamas's official response to the hostage deal will not come on Sunday evening.

Israel won’t agree to pay any price to return the over 130 hostages held in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his government hours before Hamas was expected to deliver its response to the framework of an agreement reached in Paris last week.

"Efforts to free our abductees continue all the time,” Netanyahu said at the weekly meeting held in Tel Aviv amid reports that the Hamas response at 7 p.m. was likely to request the release of many Palestinians jailed for killing Israelis. 

“We will not agree to any deal, and not at any price." Many things that are said in the media as if we agreed to them, such as what is related to the release of terrorists, we simply will not agree to,” Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu stressed that Israel will look to uphold the key by which Palestinian terrorists were released in the first, week-long pause of fighting. "The key used in the last hostage release deal... should be the point of reference for [future negotiations]," the prime minister said.

Under what terms will an agreement be made?

At issue between Hamas and Israel is the terror group’s insistence that a deal must include an end to the Gaza war, while Israel has stood on its principled position that it must be allowed to complete its military campaign to oust Hamas from the enclave.

"We will not end the war before we complete all of its goals: the elimination of Hamas, the return of all our hostages, and ensuring that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel,” Netanyahu said.

To achieve this objective, the IDF has already destroyed 17 out of Hamas’s 24 battalions, Netanyahu said, as he explained that the remainder of the forces were in southern Gaza, including in Rafah.

He spoke of conducting “purification” operations to make sure that the battalions were disbanded. It’s also important, Netanyahu said, to continue destroying the Hamas underground tunnels, scubas the IDF has been doing in Khan Younis and other areas of Gaza.

Netanyahu's reaction to Ben-Gvir's statements

He also took issue with comments his coalition partner, Public Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, made to The Wall Street Journal attacking US President Joe Biden for not doing enough to support Israel’s war effort.

His comments were published as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was due to visit Israel and as the Biden administration was pushing Congress to back additional military aid for Israel.

“Instead of giving us his full backing, Biden is busy with giving humanitarian aid and fuel [to Gaza], which goes to Hamas,” Ben-Gvir told the WJS, explaining that the situation would be better if former US president Donald Trump was in office. 

“If Trump was in power, the US conduct would be completely different,” he said.

Netanyahu told his government, "We greatly appreciate the support we have received from the Biden administration since the outbreak of the war,” including in international bodies and on the battlefield.

He cautioned, however, that "This does not mean that we do not have differences of opinion, but to date, we have managed to overcome them.”

Without naming Ben-Gvir, he appeared to accuse him of harming Israel’s national and security interests.

“There are those who say ‘yes’ to everything in places where you must say ‘no.’ They receive applause from the international community but endanger our national security. And there are those who say ‘no’ to everything, receive applause at home, but they also endanger vital interests,” Netanyahu said.

One who is wise knows “how to navigate - to say "yes" when possible, and to say "no" when necessary,” Netanyahu said.

 "I don't need help to know how to navigate our relations with the US and the international community while standing firm on our national interests. … I've been doing this for several years.” Netanyahu said.

“As a sovereign country fighting for its existence and future, we make our own decisions, even in those cases where there is no agreement with our American friends,” Netanyahu said.

He also used the platform of the government meeting to call on international commuting to replace the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which services 5.9 million Palestinian refugees.

“In the last few days, we revealed to the world that UNRA cooperates with Hamas and that some of its people even participated in the massacre and kidnapping [of Israelis] on October 7. 

“This only reinforces what we have known for a long time - that UNRA is not part of the solution, UNRA is part of the problem. It is time to start the process of replacing UNRA with other organizations that are not tainted by supporting terrorism,” he said.

Tovah Lazaroff contributed to this report.