A ground campaign is the only way to win the Gaza War, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said as he pledged to destroy Hamas, just after Qatari-mediated talks for an additional truce and further hostage releases collapsed in Doha late Saturday afternoon.
“We will continue the war until we achieve all its goals,” Netanyahu told reporters in a late night press briefing.
He turned to the international community, stating, “you are partners in our goal of eliminating Hamas and freeing the rest of our hostages.
“Therefore I emphasize to you as well: There is no other way to achieve these goals but to win – and there is no way to win except by continuing the ground campaign,” he stated.
Netanyahu underscored that this would be done while “observing international law.”
The IDF, he stressed, is acting to protect Israeli citizens both against Hamas in the South and Hezbollah in the North.
“We are continuing the policy we established: a strong deterrence in the North; clear decisive [victory] in the South.”
He issued a warning to Hezbollah not to open a second front in the North. “If Hezbollah makes a mistake and enters into a large-scale war,” then it will be responsible for Lebanon’s destruction.
Netanyahu spoke one day after the Gaza war resumed following a seven day “pause” from November 24 to December 1.
During that time, 110 captives were freed, Netanyahu said, including 86 Israelis and 24 foreigners.
Israel had hoped that the deal, which focused on freeing women and children, would have extended into Sunday.
The women and children held by Hamas
During a separate press conference earlier in the night, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that there were still 15 women and two children being held hostage in Gaza.
This included Shiri Bibas, 32, and her two children, Ariel, 4, and Kfir, aged 10 months.
The Bibas children are the only two remaining in Gaza; the rest of the children were released last week.
The two men held separate press conferences. Netanyahu told reporters he had invited Gallant to hold a joint one with him, but that the defense minister had preferred to speak to the press on his own.
Talks in Doha to put the Gaza war back on hold – which would have allowed for the 15 women and two children to be released – continued even after the fighting resumed on Friday morning.
But they broke down completely on Saturday night as Israel ordered Mossad negotiators to return home.
“Director of the Mossad David Barnea has instructed his team in Doha to return to Israel,” Netanyahu’s office said, explaining that this followed “an impasse in the negotiations.”
“The terrorist organization Hamas did not uphold its part of the agreement, which included the release of all of the children and women according to a list that was given to Hamas and approved by it,” the PMO said.
It issued its statement after an emotional week ending on Thursday night, in which for seven days, Israel had welcomed home the 110 hostages in seven stages.
They were among the 240 hostages Hamas seized during its October 7 infiltration of southern Israel in which the terror group also killed over 1,200 people.
Qatar – which together with Egypt, had mediated the deal – had also engaged in talks about the release of the more than 110 male hostages, including soldiers, five of them female. Those talks also came to a halt.
Macron's visit to Qatar
French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday said he planned to travel to Qatar to see if he could help put the process back on track.
At the press conference in Jerusalem on Saturday night, Netanyahu ducked a question by a reporter about whether or not Israel had rejected alternative suggestions by Hamas, that would have allowed for elderly men to be part of the deal rather than the women.
Deputy Hamas chief Saleh Al-Arouri told the pan-Arab Al Jazeera TV on Saturday that no more prisoners would be exchanged with Israel until there was a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails were released. Those prisoners are held on terror charges, including killing Israelis or on more minor security related offenses.
”Let the war take its course. This decision is final. We will not compromise on it,” Arouri said.
Netanyahu said that “Hamas violated the deal” and he had always said that if they did this, “the war would resume.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who came to the region at the end of last week, partially in hopes of helping to see the hostage deal extended, also told reporters in the United Arab Emirates on Friday that Hamas had violated the deal.
He had flown there after visiting Israel, to participate in the United Nations COP28 Climate Conference.
The temporary truce in Gaza, he said, “came to an end because of Hamas; Hamas reneged on commitments it made.”
“In fact, even before the pause came to an end, it committed an atrocious terrorist attack in Jerusalem [on Thursday], killing three people, and wounding others, including Americans.
“It began firing rockets before the pause had ended. And as I said, it reneged on commitments it made in terms of releasing certain hostages.”
The Biden administration, he said, is committed to ensuring that all the hostages are returned.
“We’re also very much focused, as we’ve been all along, on trying to make sure that this conflict doesn’t spread, that it doesn’t escalate in other places.
“But we’re also using our diplomacy to look at not only what’s happening today and how we’re handling that, but also what happens the day after in Gaza and how we can get on the path to a just, lasting, and secure peace for Israelis, for Palestinians – in fact, for everyone in the region. And that’s also a big focus of our diplomacy.”
While at COP28, he said, he had spoken with his contemporaries from other countries on all these topics.
He clarified that the United States supports Israel’s right to defend itself through a military campaign in Gaza, but underscored that the IDF must do its utmost to minimize Palestinian civilian losses and to ensure the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
“We’ve also been very clear that we support Israel and its efforts to make sure that October 7th never happens again. We’ve also been very clear about the imperative of doing that in a way that puts a premium on protecting civilians and making sure that humanitarian assistance gets to those who need it,” Blinken stated.
The US is “going to be looking very closely” to make sure that Israel does everything possible to protect Palestinian civilians during its military campaign, Blinken said.
Prior to leaving Israel, Blinken had said that the US had wanted to see plans to ensure Palestinian civilian safety before the IDF embarked on a military campaign in southern Gaza.
Netanyahu told reporters on Saturday night that the US and Israel were more aligned than divided on the issue of the Gaza war, but that in the end, “this is our war and we have to make the decisions.”
In the UAE on Friday, President Isaac Herzog held a series of meetings on the sidelines of the United Nations COP28 Climate Conference as part of his effort to help secure the return of some remaining 137 hostages held by Hamas.
He met with the Emir of Qatar His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and circulated a photograph of the two of them shaking hands. It is the first such public high-level meeting between an Israeli and a Qatari official, given that Israel and Qatar do not have formal diplomatic relations.
Herzog also met President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and His Royal Highness King Charles III. In his meetings, Herzog emphasized the humanitarian duty of releasing the hostages and appealed to world leaders to join this effort. He also said it is Israel’s “right and duty” to defend itself against the security threat posed by Hamas to bring safety back to Israel.
Silva told Herzog that he had spoken with the leaders of South American nations and called on them to support the return of the hostages. All of the leaders condemned the act of terror committed by Hamas against the Israeli people.
Reuters and Maayan Hoffman contributed to this report.