Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated he has no intention of allowing the ceasefire in Gaza to become permanent.
Speaking at an Israel Defense Forces cadets’ graduation ceremony on Thursday, Netanyahu declared Israel still “has more work” to do in Gaza. He continued, “At the end of the day, Hamas will be disarmed and Gaza will be demilitarized. If foreign troops do it, great. If they don’t do it, we will.”
After Hamas indicated that it was willing to release all Israeli hostages without a full agreement to end the war, US mediators pushed the deal through by tabling significant issues to be negotiated later, including potential disarmament of Hamas.
President Donald Trump and Netanyahu have declared that Hamas must disarm and have threatened to use force to complete the objective. Qatari mediators say Hamas is unwilling to disarm, but will hand over governance of Gaza to another Palestinian group.
Israel has violated the ceasefire by killing Palestinians nearly every day. While the pace of killing in the Strip has slowed, over 200 Palestinians have been killed in the three weeks since the truce came into effect. On Tuesday, Israeli strikes killed 46 Palestinian children.
On Wednesday, the White House said it did not object to the Israeli strikes over the previous 24 hours that pummeled Gaza and killed over 100 Palestinians.
Additionally, Israel has not lived up to its pledge of allowing 600 aid trucks into Gaza each day. The restrictions on aid have led officials to warn that shortages are killing Palestinians. The director of the al-Shifa Hospital said patients were dying of treatable injuries. He went on to warn of increasing deaths among Palestinians with chronic health conditions.
The head of the World Health Organization explained last week that not enough food is entering Gaza, and the hunger crisis has not improved since the start of the ceasefire.
While Israel has claimed that the truce is still in effect, the strikes have continued. Palestinians said bombs struck Khan Younis on Thursday.
