Hamas: Netanyahu’s Philadelphi comments attest to desperation, liability for truce failure
The Palestinian Hamas resistance movement says the latest comments by Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel would not relinquish control over a strategic corridor along the Gaza-Egyptian border are an acknowledgement of his desperation and liability for the failure to reach a ceasefire deal in Gaza.
“Netanyahu’s statements are the words of a desperate man searching for an illusory victory that he has not managed to sell to his audience after eleven months of his Nazi war against our people in the Gaza Strip,” Izzat al-Rishq, a member of the political bureau of Hamas, said on Monday night.
He added that the Israeli prime minister and his criminal war cabinet have failed to achieve any of their declared objectives in Gaza except for numerous massacres in the besieged coastal sliver.
“Netanyahu is a war criminal who survives on lies, and lies to his audience and the American administration. His recent statements … are full of lies that no one would believe. His comments confirm that he is the one obstructing the exchange deal [for the release of captives in Gaza in return for Palestinian abductees held in the regime’s prisons] and a ceasefire agreement [in the Gaza Strip],” Rishq pointed out.
The senior Hamas official placed full responsibility for the lives and safety of Israeli captives in Gaza on Netanyahu, emphasizing that he insists on killing them and overlooks their situation in spite of resistance factions’ reasonable care for their safety and proper treatment.
In Tel Aviv, Netanyahu is also under immense criticism for blocking a truce deal with his insistence on continued Israeli control of the Philadelphi Corridor and central Gaza’s Netzarim Corridor.
The Israeli opposition has blasted Netanyahu’s comments that Philadelphi is essential for Israel to achieve its war aims as “baseless political spin”, saying that Netanyahu had years to retake the corridor and didn’t bother, and only sent the Israel troopers to do so eight months into the current war.
In his first public address since Sunday’s mass protests that saw hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers urging a deal with Hamas for the release of captives being held in the Gaza Strip, Netanyahu said he will not relinquish Israeli control of the Philadelphi corridor.
Netanyahu asserted that the corridor is vital to ensuring Hamas cannot rearm via tunnels. “This is the oxygen of Hamas,” he said.
“No one is more committed to freeing the hostages than me. … No one will preach to me on this issue,” he further claimed.
‘Israeli captives would return in coffins because of Netanyahu’
Meanwhile, the spokesman for the al-Qassam Brigades, which is the armed wing of Hamas, warned that Israeli captives being held in Gaza would return “in coffins” in case Netanyahu does not change his rigid stances.
“Netanyahu and the occupation army bear full responsibility for the deaths of the captives, as they deliberately obstructed any prisoner exchange deal for the sake of narrow-minded interests. Additionally, dozens of them were intentionally killed as a result of direct airstrikes,” Abu Obaida said in a statement.
He stated that resistance fighters guarding the captives were given new instructions after the Israeli army attack on June 8 on the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip killed some of them.
“Netanyahu’s insistence on freeing the captives through military offensives instead of reaching a deal means they will return to their families in coffins. Their families must choose: either dead or alive,” Abu Obaida noted.
