Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made it clear that he will not agree to Hamas' demands for his country's troops to withdraw from Gaza for two key reasons: the overall security of the country and ensuring the safe return of hostages still being held by Hamas.
Fears continue to grow that Hamas may be trying to smuggle some of the remaining 97 Israeli hostages still being held to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, which has long been seen as a haven for Islamic extremist groups, and from there to Yemen or Iran.
According to Prime Minister Netanyahu, the best way to prevent Hamas from smuggling hostages is to maintain the Philadelphia Route, a security corridor connecting the Gaza Strip with Egypt.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu points to a map of the Gaza Strip during a press conference at the Government Press Office (GPO) in Jerusalem, September 4, 2024. (Abir Sultan/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
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“Hol[d] “The Philadelphia Corridor is controlling Hamas and preventing them from rearming,” Netaniyu told Fox & Friends' Brian Kilmeade. “It's preventing Gaza from once again becoming a base for Iranian terrorism and threatening our existence.”
“But it's also a way to ensure that hostages aren't smuggled into Egypt or the Sinai Peninsula and then disappeared,” he added. “They'll then end up in Iran or Yemen and be lost forever.”
The Prime Minister's comments were: Reported by the Jewish Chronicle According to the paper, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar had hatched a secret plan to secretly transport himself, other Hamas leaders and some of the remaining Israeli hostages out of Gaza through the Philadelphia Corridor and then on to Iran.
The transcript cites Israeli intelligence sources, but other Israeli media outlets He denied the reports. Fox News Digital was unable to independently verify the information Thursday.
Israeli combat engineers search for Hamas tunnels in the Philadelphia Corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border. (TPS-IL)
In his remarks to Fox News, Netanyahu did not elaborate on what leverage Hamas would gain from secretly escaping the hostages from Gaza, but securing their release has become increasingly central to ceasefire negotiations.
Netanyahu has stepped up his opposition to U.S. efforts to push through a ceasefire agreement following the assassination of six Israeli hostages who had been held by Hamas since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack and were found last month in a tunnel dug by the terrorist group.
The American hostages – Hersh Goldberg Polin, 23, Eden Yerushalmi, 24, Carmel Gatto, 40, Alex Lobanov, 32, Almog Salsi, 27, and Ori Danino, 25 – were “brutally murdered” by Hamas shortly before they were rescued, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement. (Fox News)
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Three of the hostages killed were Part of the exchange A ceasefire was proposed in July but was never reached.
“We are doing our best to get the rest [out]”But Hamas has consistently rejected the agreement,” Netaniyu said.
Details of the ceasefire agreement offered by the United States, Qatar and Egypt have been kept closely secret for months, and reports over the past few weeks have suggested that the latest agreement, signed by Israel but rejected by Hamas, was due to Jerusalem's refusal to withdraw from the Philadelphia route.
“This is completely false,” he said, noting that this is about more than just maintaining a corridor.
“What we need to do is make sure we do two things,” Netanyahu said. “One, we need to rescue the hostages. And two, we need to protect the red lines that are necessary for the security and survival of Israel.”
“I think they're both going to win by taking over the Philadelphia corridor,” he added.
Despite Netanyahu's strong opposition to ceding any control of the strategic route and Hamas's refusal to hand over hostages until Israel halts its operations in Gaza, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday that the negotiations were making significant progress.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presided over a cabinet meeting at Kirya military base, which houses the Israeli Ministry of Defense, in Tel Aviv, Israel, on December 24, 2023. Top U.S. leaders have invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress. The visit will be a show of wartime support for a longtime ally amid growing political divisions over Israel's military attacks on Gaza. The invitation, from Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and other leaders, has been in the works for some time. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg, Poole, File)
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“From what I've seen, I think 90 percent is agreed upon, but there are still some significant issues that need to be agreed upon,” he told reporters. “Many of those have been discussed over the last few days, including the Philadelphia Corridor and the specifics of how the hostage and prisoner exchanges will be carried out.”
“So that's still there, but pretty much everything else is still there,” he added.
Blinken said he expected Egypt and Qatar to share the latest agreement with Hamas, and the United States with Israel, in the coming days to strengthen the ceasefire agreement.
“Then there will come a time when the parties will decide whether they are for or against it, and we will see what happens,” he added.
