Arab media reported overnight Monday that dozens were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younes, in southern Gaza. According to the Qatari Al-Jazeera network, Hamas is feeling increasingly threatened.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday told the cabinet: “Regarding Hamas in Gaza – the military pressure is working. It is working because it is simultaneous: on the one hand, it is pounding Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, and on the other, it is creating the conditions for releasing our hostages. This is exactly what we are doing.
“Last night, the Security Cabinet convened and decided to increase the pressure, which was already increased, in order to further pound Hamas and create the optimal conditions for releasing our hostages.”
Al-Jazeera reported, “76 people, including women and children, have been killed since dawn on Sunday, the first day of Eid al-Fitr.” It also stated that the terrorist organization Hamas had called on the “free nations” and the international community to “act to stop the Israeli aggression.”
Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday: “While on the subject of Hamas, I would now like to comment on three false claims that are constantly being directed at us in one continuous lie:
“One – that we are not holding negotiations. This is incorrect. We are holding them under fire; therefore, they are also effective. Suddenly we see that there are cracks.
“The second claim is that we are unwilling to discuss the final stage. This is also incorrect. We are willing. Hamas will lay down its weapons. Its leaders will be allowed to leave. We will see to the general security in the Gaza Strip and will allow the realization of the Trump plan for voluntary migration. This is the plan. We are not hiding this and are ready to discuss it at any time.
“The third lie is that we do not care about the hostages. This is incorrect for the ministers here who regularly meet with the families of the hostages and for my wife and I. Last week we met and talked with four families. We speak in depth and feel their pain, which is immense. This claim – that we do not care – echoes Hamas propaganda. This is what Hamas puts into its videos with the goal of creating internal dissension and a false picture.
“We are committed to returning the hostages and we are working to return them. As of today, the combination of military and diplomatic pressure is the only thing that has returned the hostages and not any of the empty claims and slogans that I hear in the studios from the self-professed experts.”
Haaretz, which has been issuing Hamas talking points since the start of the war, on Monday argued that “the dispute between Hamas and Israel revolves around the issue of guarantees for serious negotiations to end the war and for the IDF’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Hamas believes that agreements should be followed through, and it is unwilling to release hostages without solid assurances that the negotiations would be genuine and not just empty promises, as it experienced in the first phase of the deal signed in Doha on January 17.
“Hamas is not satisfied with the US assurances to the Qataris and is demanding stronger guarantees. Despite this, it views political promises as unreliable, emphasizing that what is signed today may be violated tomorrow. Hamas holds a document signed by Israeli officials David Barnea and Ronen Bar (heads of Mossad and Shin Bet respectively), stipulating Israel’s withdrawal from the Philadelphi corridor on the fiftieth day, and it intends to hold Israel to that agreement.”
It appears Haaretz and Al Jazeera are at odds over how desperate Hamas’s situation is. Someone in Gaza should set these two Hamas agents straight.
