Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was the third Israeli official in the last three days to publicly swear that the government still supported the three-phase hostage deal, the one that US President Joe Biden unveiled at the end of last month.
“We stand firmly behind the President’s deal, which Israel has accepted, and now Hamas must accept – or bear the consequences,” Gallant said as Qatari and Egyptian mediators continued to attempt to salvage the flagging deal.
Hamas has rejected the deal, but Washington has not given up in attempting to bridge the basic stumbling block: Hamas insists that Israel must commit to a permanent ceasefire before the deal gets underway, while Israel wants that question dealt with during phase one of the deal.
National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said on Tuesday that Israel was committed to the deal, noting that time was not on the side of the hostages being held in Gaza.
"Israel is committed to deal"
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged his commitment to the deal, which he said was an Israeli proposal, during a speech he gave to the Knesset plenum on Monday.
His tone was different from that which he used in an interview to Channel 14 on Sunday night, when he said he only partially supported the deal.
The hostage issue was high on Gallant’s agenda during his conversations in Washington this week with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.
“We are committed to bringing the hostages home with no exception. We are committed to defending our people,” Gallant said, referencing the remaining 120 captives held in Gaza who were seized on October 7.
“But let it be known, that our war is not with the people of Gaza. Our war is not with the people of Lebanon.
“Our war is against Hamas, Hezbollah, and their backer – the Iranian regime,” he said.
US National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby also called on Hamas to accept the deal, adding that it would additionally help facilitate the distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza.
The deal would include a temporary halt to the fighting in its first phase, in exchange for the release of 33 of the hostages.
“The real answer to this [humanitarian aid] is to get to phase one of the ceasefire deal; you get hostages home to their families, you get six weeks of a sustainable calm,” Kirby said.
This would make it easier for aid organizations to move around Gaza, he stressed, because “nobody’s shooting at anybody.”
Aid distribution
Gallant, in Washington, said, “We are committed, and I am personally committed, to facilitating the delivery of essential humanitarian aid to Gaza. We only fight those who seek to harm us.”
Kirby explained that part of the problem in the distribution of aid was also the activities of criminal gangs in the enclave.
At present, he said, not many trucks are making it through the Kerem Shalom land crossing between Israel and Gaza. “That’s not because of the Israelis. It largely because criminal gangs are looting these trucks and the World Food Program in the UN drivers are obviously concerned about getting attacked,” Kirby said.
“So we’re gonna have to continue to work with the Israelis to try to address that problem as well,” he said.