Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted today that keeping the army on the border between Gaza and Egypt, known as the Philadelphia corridor, is the only way to exert pressure for the release of the hostages still in Gaza.
"Leaving there will not bring the hostages back," Netanyahu declared in a speech in English delivered at a press conference for foreign media.
"If we want to free the hostages, we have to control the Philadelphia corridor," the leader argued, stressing that this area had served for years as a route for the smuggling of weapons from Iran, despite the passivity of the Egyptian authorities, and that any agreement without this clause would be a threat to the Israelis, so "there will be no agreement in this form."
The speech, in which Netanyahu said he had personally apologized to the families of some of the hostages killed in Gaza, ended with the prime minister repeating, in different ways, that Israel "will not abandon" the Philadelphia corridor.
"We are not going to leave [the dividing line] and come back in 42 days when we know we will not be able to return," he argued, referring to the duration of the first phase of a possible ceasefire agreement with the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, with which Israel has been at war in the Gaza Strip for almost 11 months.
According to Netanyahu's logic, only military pressure will help free the hostages still held by Hamas, and the November ceasefire only happened once and the Palestinian group "felt the pressure".
The Israeli chief executive also referred to the death of six hostages in Gaza last week, which shook the country and sparked street protests, arguing that if Israel were to give in now, it would be tantamount to sending the message that "by killing more hostages, [Hamas] will get more concessions", which he described as "immoral madness".
On October 7th last year, Israel declared war on the Gaza Strip to "eradicate" Hamas, hours after it carried out an unprecedented attack on Israeli territory, killing 1,194 people, most of them civilians.
Hamas, which has been in power in Gaza since 2007 and has been classified as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel, also took 251 hostages that day, 97 of whom remain in captivity, 33 of whom have since been declared dead by the Israeli army.
The war, which entered its 334th day today and continues to threaten to spread to the entire Middle East region, has so far left at least 40,861 dead (almost 2% of the population) and 94,398 injured in the Gaza Strip, in addition to more than 10,000 missing, most of them civilians, presumably buried in the rubble, according to updated figures from local authorities.
The conflict has also displaced around 1.9 million people, plunging the overpopulated and impoverished Palestinian enclave into a serious humanitarian crisis, with more than 1.1 million people in a "catastrophic famine situation" that is claiming victims - "the highest number ever recorded" by the UN in studies on food security in the world.
During the press conference, Netanyahu also condemned the international pressure against Israel for its operations in the Gaza Strip, stressing that the ongoing offensive in Rafah - which has led more than 1.4 million Palestinians to flee the city, until then considered a safe zone - and which now allows control of the Philadelphia corridor, has had many critics, including the United States, its traditional ally. "Part of the reason we have been suffocating them is to control their money machine, which is the Rafah crossing," he explained.
The Israeli prime minister also accused Hamas of having "rejected" everything that was proposed during the negotiations held under international mediation to reach a ceasefire in Gaza in exchange for the release of the hostages held there. "Hamas has rejected everything, and when we try to find a basis to start negotiations, they refuse [and say] there is nothing to discuss.
I hope that will change, because I want these hostages to be released," Netanyahu said at the press conference, dismissing accusations that his insistence that Israel maintain control of the Philadelphia corridor is preventing the negotiations from succeeding.
