Hamas seized upon Netanyahu’s comments, saying his bid for a partial deal was a “clear rejection” of the proposal outlined by President Joe Biden for a comprehensive three-phase agreement to release the hostages and bring an end to the fighting in Gaza.
Netanyahu’s office responded late Sunday, saying it was Hamas “which opposes a deal, not Israel.”
“Prime Minister Netanyahu has made it clear that we will not leave Gaza until we return all 120 of our hostages, living and deceased,” it said.
Washington also previously maintained that it was Hamas holding up a deal.
But the families of the remaining hostages also hit out at Netanyahu, suggesting he had backed away from the U.S. proposal.
A group representing them condemned his statement, which it said “abandons 120 hostages and violates the state’s moral obligation to its citizens.”
The Israeli leader has continued to flout pressure from at home and abroad to strike a cease-fire deal with Hamas, as well as to reduce tensions at Israel’s northern border with Lebanon to avoid an all-out war with Hezbollah.
His comments heightened international alarm, with the European Union’s top diplomat Josep Borrell warning that the “risk of a full-blown conflict involving Hezbollah is real.”
The top U.S. military officer also warned Sunday that any Israeli military offensive into Lebanon would risk inviting an Iranian response that could endanger U.S. troops in the region.
Air Force Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that while Tehran already supports Hamas militants in Gaza, it would likely give greater support to the Lebanon-based group “particularly if they felt that Hezbollah was being significantly threatened.”
The comments came as Israel and the U.S. continued to clash over weapons shipments.
Speaking Sunday during a visit to Washington, Israeli Defense MInister Yoav Gallant maintained that Israeli officials were “committed to ensuring a strong U.S.-Israel alliance” and stressed that the U.S. was “the most important ally of Israel — and more central than ever before.”
Yet Netanyahu on Sunday repeated accusations that the U.S. was withholding weapons from Israel, a claim the Biden administration has rejected.
Without specifying which weapons, Netanyahu told his cabinet there had been a “dramatic drop” in U.S. weapons deliveries for Israel “about four months ago.”
“We have made our position clear on this repeatedly and we are not going to keep responding to the Prime Minister’s political statements,” a White House official told NBC News.
But the official said Washington was looking forward to “constructive consultations” with Gallant in Washington this week.
More than 37,000 people have been killed in Gaza, including many children, according to local health officials, since Israel launched its deadly offensive following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks, in which some 1,200 people were killed and around 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli officials. More than 100 are thought to remain captive in Gaza, with at least a third believed to be dead.
Humanitarian group Save the Children warned Monday of an increasingly dire situation for young Palestinians, revealing an estimate that up to 21,000 children in Gaza had gone “missing in the chaos of the war.”
Many, the organization said, were feared to have been “trapped beneath rubble, detained, buried in unmarked graves, or lost from their families” during Israel’s offensive.
Yarden Segev and Allie Raffa contributed.
