Benjamin Netanyahu has defied protests at home and criticism from Joe Biden by vowing that Israel would not relinquish control over a strategic corridor along the Gaza-Egyptian border.
In a combative press conference, the Israeli prime minister presented control of the Philadelphi corridor along Gaza’s border with Egypt as a primary war aim, entrenching a position that has emerged as a key obstacle to a ceasefire deal.
“Israel will not accept the massacre of six hostages, Hamas will pay a heavy price,” said Netanyahu, standing in front of a wall-sized map of the Gaza Strip that included clip art of bombs and missiles crossing the border. “Iran’s axis of evil needs the Philadelphi corridors … Israel must control it.”
The remarks came hours after the US president met with his top advisers on the Gaza conflict and told reporters that he did not believe Netanyahu was doing enough to secure a ceasefire deal with Hamas.
Netanyahu’s remarks came after protests this weekend and a general strike on Monday prompted by the discovery of the bodies of six hostages in Gaza. Tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrated against the government’s handling of the war in Gaza and efforts to release dozens of hostages who remain in captivity.
Hamas’s armed wing said on Monday that hostages would return to Israel “inside coffins” if military pressure continued, warning that “new instructions” had been given to the militants guarding the captives if Israeli troops approached.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Biden said that his administration was “very close” to proposing a “final” hostage deal to both sides that has assumed new urgency since the discovery of the bodies, including that of Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin.
The Washington Post had previously reported that the Biden administration was preparing to propose a “take it or leave it” deal that, if it failed, could mark the end of US-led efforts to negotiate a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
Biden did not reveal details of the new proposal and, asked why he thought a new deal could prove successful after months of unsuccessful attempts, said: “Hope springs eternal.”
The White House said that Biden received a briefing from top-level advisers including the national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, and the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, where they discussed “next steps” in the ceasefire efforts in collaboration with co-mediators Egypt and Qatar.
Netanyahu has remained defiant over Israeli claims to strategic points in Gaza, despite significant internal and international pressure to secure at least a temporary ceasefire in the 11-month-old war.
During his remarks on Monday, the Israeli prime minister apologised to the families of the six hostages found dead in Gaza over the weekend, but then quickly pivoted to defend his government’s control over the Philadelphi corridor. That has been seen as a non-starter for a potential ceasefire deal with Hamas.
“In the war against the axis of evil, in this specific war against Hamas and also in the north, we have set four goals: defeat Hamas; return our hostages; ensure that Gaza does not pose a threat; and to return residents to the south,” he said. “Three of these goals pass through the Philadelphi route, Hamas’s oxygen pipe.”
The Israeli opposition leader, Yair Lapid, derided Netanyahu’s presentation as “political spin” with “no relation to reality”.
“Not one professional buys this spin. Not the security personnel, not the international system, not the fighters who are actually in Gaza and know the reality there,” Lapid said, according to the Times of Israel.
The Philadelphi corridor has only emerged as an Israeli government talking point in recent weeks, and was not part of the plan that Biden presented in May, which the Israeli government said at the time it accepted.
The Hostage Families Forum vowed that their protests would continue, but the far-right members of Netanyahu’s government coalition declared victory after a labour court ruling that the strike had to end at 2.30pm local time (12.30pm BST).
Even before the court ruling, the strike, called by the Histadrut trade union federation, was not seen as a significant threat to the government. It had only been due to last a day, and only a few local authorities took part.
Banks and many private businesses closed or gave their employees the option of taking the day off, but it was not the prolonged stoppage that activists hoped would have an impact on the economy and force the coalition into a ceasefire-for-hostage deal with Hamas.
Public anger erupted after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) found the hostages’ bodies in a tunnel deep under the Palestinian city of Rafah over the weekend. According to Israel’s health ministry, they had been shot at close range about two days before their remains were discovered. Some of them – including Goldberg-Polin – would have been in the first batch of hostages to be released under the proposed ceasefire deal.
Goldberg-Polin’s funeral was held in Jerusalem on Monday. Addressing the family at the ceremony, Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, apologised for his death on behalf of the state.
“We are sorry we failed to protect you in the terrible failure of 7 October,” Herzog said. “We are sorry we failed to bring you home safely. We are sorry that the country you immigrated to at the age of seven, wrapped in the Israeli flag, failed to keep you.”
About 250 hostages were seized by Hamas in its 7 October surprise attack on southern Israel, which killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians. In the Gaza war that followed, Israel forces have killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, the large majority of them civilians.
Other countries have slightly increased pressure on Israel since the botched rescue of the hostages. The UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, on Monday announced the suspension of 30 of 350 arms export licenses to Israel. Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said he was “deeply disheartened” by the decision at a time when “we fight a war on seven different fronts”.
The extreme right members of Netanyahu’s coalition welcomed the decision of the Bat Yam labour court to order Monday’s strike to end early. The finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said the strike had been “political and illegal”, serving the interests of Hamas.
The Hostage Families Forum said that protests would still continue after the strike, in the interests of the 101 hostages still unaccounted for in Gaza, of whom Israeli intelligence believes about a third are already dead.
The forum said the surviving hostages had been “abandoned” on Thursday last week, when Netanyahu’s cabinet voted to stand behind the prime minister’s negotiating position insisting on Israeli control of the Philadelphi corridor. Gallant was the only cabinet member to vote against the stance, and has called for the decision to be reversed.
About 100,000 protesters took part in demonstrations in Tel Aviv on Sunday night, temporarily blocking the north-south motorway that runs through the city. On Monday, there were sporadic protests blocking key road junctions around the country and another big demonstration was called for Monday night.
Among even the most determined demonstrators however was an acceptance that they did not yet have the strength to threaten Netanyahu’s hold on power and force him to change course.
“I’m not sure the strike was as powerful as people expected,” said Debbie Mason, a social worker for the Eshkol regional council, an area of southern Israel abutting Gaza, where many of the victims of the 7 October Hamas attack lived.
“Unfortunately, there are too many things that are going to obstruct a deal. Whether it’s on our side, whether it’s on Hamas’s side, it just doesn’t seem to be in anyone’s interest that something should happen,” Mason said.
She was speaking in “Hostages Square”, a plaza between the national library and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, where hostage families and their supporters gather every day.
Rayah Karmin, a vitamin supplement salesperson from Mabu’im, a village near Netivot near the Gaza frontier, agreed that a one-day strike would change little.
“Only a longer strike will make the people in government understand that the economy of Israel is going to go down,” Karmin said.
She pointed out that all the protests faced an immovable political reality: that if a ceasefire were agreed, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich would lead a far-right walk-out from the cabinet and the coalition would fall, removing Netanyahu’s immunity against corruption charges he faces in Israeli courts.
“Smotrich and Ben-Gvir will leave Netanyahu, and then he will be without a coalition, and he will have to go home,” Karmin said. “And he knows that next time he won’t be elected, so he wants to stay as long as he can.”
