INTUSK MAGAZINE

Benjamin Netanyahu said that "absolute victory" over the militant group was the only way to address Israel's security concerns, rejecting the conditions of a truce in Gaza that Hamas had suggested and pushing back against US efforts to forward the conflict's mediated resolution more swiftly. 

The Israeli prime minister further stated that the Israel Defence Forces had received orders to start fighting in Rafah, a city in southern Gaza where hundreds of thousands of displaced people have made their home. 

Netanyahu declared that it would take several months of more combat before Hamas was vanquished, delivering a scathing jab at the Biden administration and visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. 

The deadliest round of fighting in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has killed more than 27,000 Palestinians, levelled entire neighbourhoods, driven the vast majority of Gaza’s population from their homes and pushed a quarter of the population to starvation 

Yoav Gallant, the Israeli minister of defence, had informed Blinken earlier in the day that Israel would undoubtedly reject Hamas' response to the ceasefire talks. 

Netanyahu stated that "surrendering to Hamas's delusional conditions," which include the demand for a 135-day ceasefire in exchange for the release of hostages, "would lead to another massacre, and to a great tragedy on Israel that no one would be willing to accept" during a televised press conference on Wednesday night.