Israel's Netanyahu Sees Biden's Gaza Truce Plan as "Partial"

Gaza: According to a government spokeswoman on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu considers the US President Joe Biden's proposal for a hostage-release agreement and a cease-fire in Gaza to be "partial."
On Friday, Biden unveiled what he described as an Israeli three-phase plan that would ultimately put a stop to hostilities, liberate all Palestinian detainees, and pave the way for the restoration of the severely damaged Gaza Strip in the absence of Hamas rule.

Netanyahu stated in a press briefing that "the war will be stopped for the purpose of returning the hostages," adding that "the outline that President Biden presented is partial." Following this, talks will take place regarding how to accomplish Israel's objective of defeating Hamas.

Party leaders Itamar Ben Gvir, Minister of National Security, and Bezalel Smotrich, Minister of Finance, who lead the prime minister's far-right coalition, both attacked the most recent proposal on Monday.

Ben Gvir stated that the Biden plan would result in "the end of the war without achieving the objective that the cabinet clearly set: the destruction of Hamas".

Ben Gvir claimed that his party "will break up the government" if Netanyahu were to "sign on an irresponsible deal".
Smotrich stated: "If, heaven forbid, the government decides to adopt this proposal of surrender, we will not be part of it and we will act to replace the failed leadership with new leadership."
The leader of the opposition, centrist former premier Yair Lapid, has declared that the government "cannot ignore Biden's important speech" and promised to  back Netanyahu if his far-right coalition partners quit.

According to an AFP count based on Israeli official data, 1,190 people were killed in Hamas's unprecedented October 7 strike on southern Israel, which set off the Gaza conflict. The majority of the casualties were civilians.

Around 250 captives were also taken by Hamas; 120 of them are still in Gaza, including 37 who the army claims are dead.

Since October 7, Israeli shelling and ground incursion in Gaza have killed at least 36,479 Palestinians, the majority of them were civilians, according to the health ministry in the region controlled by Hamas.
Since scores of hostages were released during a one-week truce in November in exchange for Palestinian inmates in Israeli jails and a spike in the delivery of humanitarian goods into besieged Gaza, efforts by the US, Egypt, and Qatar to mediate the situation have come to a standstill.

Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas in Lebanon, has been exchanging cross-border gunfire with Israel ever since the Gaza war started.

Smotrich declared on Monday that "hundreds of thousands of Lebanese" should be driven out of the border region by an Israeli military invasion of Lebanon.

"A ground invasion, occupation of the territory, and distancing Hezbollah terrorists and hundreds of thousands of Lebanese among whom Hezbollah hides to the other side of the Litani river," he said, are some of the ways Israel must create a "security strip" in southern Lebanon, as it had maintained for 15 years prior to withdrawing troops in 2000. This area is approximately 30 kilometers (almost 20 miles) from the UN-patrolled border.