Netanyahu argues chances of Gaza deal have ‘changed for the better’ after achievements against Hezbollah; says he’d pause but not end war against Hamas for a hostage deal
In his first interview since the start of the ceasefire in Lebanon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that if Hezbollah were to violate the agreement, there would be “intensive war.”
The prime minister said he had given the Israel Defense Forces instructions that in the case of a “massive violation of the agreement,” the response would extend beyond “surgical operations like we’re doing now.”
Meanwhile, a day after the ceasefire took effect, the IDF’s Home Front Command lifted all restrictions on gatherings south of Haifa. The restrictions, which limited the number of people allowed at indoor and outdoor gatherings, were put in place amid heavy rocket fire from Hezbollah.
Restrictions remain in various areas of northern Israel, and schools will remain closed in the northern frontier towns and Golan Heights as Israel examines the security situation.
Thursday saw the military carry out a number of strikes in Lebanon for the first time since the ceasefire began, saying it had targeted terror operatives and violations of the truce. This included a strike on a Hezbollah medium-range rocket facility after identifying activity there, and another against two Hezbollah operatives who entered a known rocket launching site in south Lebanon. The army also said it fired warning shots at several suspects entering restricted areas.
Commenting on the ceasefire Thursday, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said the military would enforce it “with fire” to enable the return of the displaced residents of the north to their homes.
“This agreement is the result of months of fighting and in particular the last three months. A lot of achievements in Lebanon, intense work, very determined work, the killing of the entire senior [Hezbollah] echelon, the killing of all the commanders,” Halevi said during an assessment. “It is now moving to another stage, with the same determination… and we have precise knowledge that Hezbollah came to this agreement from a place of a lack of options and weakness.”
He added that “the residents in the north are looking now and want to see us very determined on enforcement so that they can return, and this is our duty to them, and our duty to ourselves.”
Netanyahu, speaking to Channel 14’s Yaakov Bardugo, said the ceasefire “could be short.” He also noted that Israel had “enforced [the ceasefire] on its first day,” in reference to the strikes.
The interview came as Channel 13 reported that Netanyahu gathered advisors on Thursday evening for a meeting on the various fronts of the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre in southern Israel.
Asked why Israel was not creating a buffer zone in southern Lebanon, Netanyahu asserted that the “threat of a ground invasion [by Hezbollah] has been removed,” and said that the IDF had destroyed the terror group’s aboveground infrastructure on the border as well as its underground bunkers and tunnels.
He said that residents of the north would return “when they can do so safely. It will happen in stages.”
The ceasefire sets out a 60-day transition period, during which the IDF will withdraw its forces from southern Lebanon, while the Lebanese Army will deploy some 5,000 troops south of the Litani River, including at 33 posts along the border with Israel. Hezbollah is banned from operating south of the river, several kilometers from the border.
The US has also reportedly provided a side letter specifying Israel’s right to respond to any violations of the ceasefire.
As well as the nascent truce in Lebanon, Netanyahu was asked in the interview about a possible hostage-ceasefire deal with Hamas in Gaza, to which he responded: “I think the conditions have very much changed for the better.” He said he would accept a pause in the war in Gaza “when we think we can achieve the release of the hostages.
“I am ready for a ceasefire at any time,” he said, while stressing that he will not accept an end to the war, a core Hamas demand. Without going into details, Netanyahu said Israel was doing “many, many things” to try to reach a deal.
Critics of Netanyahu have accused him of failing to reach a hostage deal due to pressure from his far-right coalition allies to press on with the war, as they openly state their desire to see Israel fully reoccupy Gaza and rebuild settlements there that were evacuated in 2005.
Netanyahu asserted that Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon had left the Palestinian terror group in Gaza isolated.
“Hamas hoped that Iran would come to save them. That didn’t happen. They hoped that the [Yemen-based] Houthis would come to save them. That didn’t happen,” the prime minister said. “But above all, they hoped that Hezbollah would come to save them, and indeed [slain Hezbollah chief Hassan] Nasrallah vowed on the second day when he attacked, ‘We will continue until Israel ceases its attacks on Hamas.’”
Now, Netanyahu said, “There is no Hezbollah [at Hamas’s side].”
Long-time Hezbollah leader Nasrallah and most of Hezbollah’s senior leadership were killed in a series of major Israeli strikes in Beirut that began at the end of September, after nearly a year of daily attacks on Israel. Israel’s massive bombing campaign also devastated the group’s command and control structure and much of its long-range missile capabilities. Analysts assess that the terror group has indeed been severely wounded, but is not defeated.
“That’s why I think the conditions have changed very much for the better, not only because of the separation of the fronts but also because of the combination of operations, including the elimination of [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar” in October.
He also said that the conditions in Lebanon were different than in Gaza, and that while Israel wanted to destroy Hamas, in Lebanon its goals were more limited, and it merely sought to prevent Hezbollah from posing a threat.
At the same time, he said that while Israel is able to prevent arms smuggling into Lebanon by bombing border crossings and striking in Syria, that can’t happen in Gaza, because Israel won’t attack Egypt. Therefore, Israel has to remain on the Gaza-Egypt border, he insinuated — another demand Hamas has said it won’t accept in any potential deal.
The prime minister told Channel 14 that he had accepted a ceasefire in Lebanon because “we achieved exactly what we intended to achieve.”
During the interview. Netanyahu also recounted the decision-making process leading up to the strike on Nasrallah, pushing back against those who claim he opposed it. He said that opponents of the move had told the security cabinet that a full-blown war with Iran could ensue, and that the US would have to be notified ahead of the strike. He said he rejected the latter condition.
At that stage, Netanyahu said, he stopped the cabinet meeting: “I said that I wanted to think about the matter of the war, and I said that I would get back to them. Some people breathed a sigh of relief because they thought that by the time I came back Nasrallah would have disappeared to some other hiding place.”
During the flight to New York in September ahead of his speech to the United Nations, Netanyahu said, he decided to take out Nasrallah.
“I got on Wing of Zion, which has a secure communication system,” he said, referencing the new plane meant to serve the prime minster and president. “I slept for two hours, then I picked up the phone to the defense minister and the chief of staff and said: ‘I’ve decided. We’re going after him. We are taking all the risk, and it’s worth the risk.”
After landing in New York, Netanyahu convened the security cabinet by phone to approve the decision. “I said that the Americans can be informed, but more or less when the planes are already in the air.”
Netanyahu denied the theory that his trip to the UN had been meant to trick Nasrallah into letting his guard down.
He also vowed that he was prepared to do “everything” to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. “I will use all the resources that can be used,” he said.
As reported by The Times of Israel