Israeli prime minister insists on Israeli control of key Gaza border strip as he battles growing pressure on captives.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has resisted pressure to do more to secure the release of Israelis held in the Gaza Strip after 11 months of fighting.
Netanyahu is facing mass protests at home and pressure from US President Joe Biden after Israeli forces recovered the bodies of six captives over the weekend, including 23-year-old American-Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin.
But on Monday he indicated he was in no mood to compromise.
He insisted that Israeli control of the Philadelphia Corridor, a narrow strip along the Gaza-Egypt border where Israel says Hamas smuggles weapons into Gaza, was a necessary part of any ceasefire agreement.
Egypt and Hamas deny such activity and the Palestinian group has rejected any Israeli presence in the region.
Netanyahu has called the corridor essential to ensuring that Hamas, which controls Gaza, is unable to use the tunnels to rearm.
“This is the oxygen of Hamas,” he said, adding: “No one is more determined than me to free the hostages… No one will lecture me on this issue.”
Israel’s key ally appears to have had enough of his intransigence.
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Monday, Biden said he did not think Netanyahu was doing enough to reach a deal, and indicated the United States planned to present a final proposal to both sides this week.
“We’re very close,” Biden told reporters.
“Hope springs eternal,” he added when asked if the latest effort would be successful.
Biden said later in the evening that he planned to speak to Netanyahu “eventually,” but did not provide a specific timetable when asked. Biden and Netanyahu have spoken several times since Israel began its war in Gaza nearly a year ago.
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said Biden’s criticism of Netanyahu was “an American acknowledgement of Netanyahu’s responsibility for undermining efforts to reach an agreement.”
He said the group would respond positively to a proposal that could secure a ceasefire and a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian enclave.
Israeli protesters took to the streets for a second day on Monday, and the largest union called a general strike to pressure the government to reach a deal for the return of the captives.
Months of fractious negotiations mediated by the United States, Qatar and Egypt have so far failed to reach agreement on a Gaza proposal Biden put forward in May.
The latest bloodbath in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was sparked on October 7 when Hamas fighters launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing 1,139 people and taking about 250 prisoners, according to Israel.
More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its assault on the Hamas-ruled territory, while almost the entire population of 2.3 million has been displaced.
