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Far-right ministers in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition have rejected the possibility of a broader hostage-for-prisoner release deal with Hamas, as talks continue in Qatar over extending the temporary truce in Gaza.
An expanded agreement may require the Jewish state to suspend its offensive against Hamas and release significant numbers of Palestinians from its prisons, including those convicted of murder, in return for the release of more hostages from Gaza, including potentially seized Israeli soldiers.
Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister, wrote on social media platform X late on Tuesday: “Not on the agenda, not even as a suggestion. There is no discussion about it at all.”
He continued: “This is a plan to eliminate the State of Israel. We continue until absolute victory, God willing, and the destruction of the Nazis of Hamas.”
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, wrote: “Stopping the war = dissolution of the government.”
The original agreement between Israel and Hamas, which came into effect last Friday, called for a four-day pause in the fighting and the release of 50 Israeli women and children seized by the Palestinian militant group during its October 7 attack on southern Israel. At least 1,200 people were killed in the cross-border assault and about 240 others were taken captive, according to Israeli authorities.
In return, Israel committed to free 150 Palestinian women and children jailed on various security offences from its prisons, and to allow entry of increased amounts of aid into besieged Gaza.
The deal was subsequently extended for two days, with an additional 10 Israeli hostages and 30 Palestinian prisoners released on Tuesday night. A final batch of hostages and prisoners is expected later on Wednesday.
In an attempt to prolong the temporary truce further to secure more hostage releases, CIA director Bill Burns and the head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency David Barnea were in Doha on Tuesday to hold talks with Qatari and Egyptian officials who had brokered the pause in hostilities.
The focus of their discussions was on how to build on the agreement, extend the pause in hostilities and secure the release of more hostages, said an official briefed on the talks.
About 150 Israelis and foreign nationals are believed to still be held in Gaza by Hamas and other smaller militant groups.
In his only public comments since the war started, Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s leader in Gaza, last month said the group was “ready to conduct an immediate prisoner exchange deal” with Israel, under which all the hostages would be released in exchange for all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. According to the Israel Prison Service, this number currently stands at more than 6,000 people.
Despite widespread support in Israel for the safe return of all the hostages from Gaza, such an “all for all” agreement, as it is known, would prove highly controversial, and not only on the ultranationalist right.
Israeli officials have made clear that the deal reached with Hamas was only a “pause” in the fighting, and that the offensive in Gaza would be resumed immediately after its completion. The war, now in its eighth week, has reduced swaths of the densely populated territory to rubble and claimed the lives of 14,800 Palestinians, according to health authorities in the Hamas-controlled enclave.
Meeting Israeli troops inside Gaza on Sunday, Netanyahu said: “We are continuing until the end — until victory. Nothing will stop us.”
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