If Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to get the hostages back in a deal, he will have to stop demanding that Hamas cease to exist, according to former deputy chief of the Israeli intelligence agency, Rami Igra.
He asked: “Is Israel really willing or wanting to make this [ceasefire] deal?”
According to Igra, Hamas has remained firm on three elements: cessation of hostilities, withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip, and the rehabilitation of the enclave.
“Netanyahu has been demanding things which are supposed to be but which will never be realized,” Igra said. “He wants Hamas to commit suicide. He wants the end of Hamas. He wants Hamas to cease to exist. Now, we all want Hamas to cease to exist, but we all have to be a little realistic, and being realistic means that the only way that we're going to neutralize Hamas is a long-term process, and not one deal that Netanyahu wants to do.”
He said that if Netanyahu believes Hamas leaders are going to give up their claim to Gaza in exchange for a cessation of hostilities, he is mistaken.
“He's been trying to do that for two years now, and he has not been achieving anything,” Igra said, noting that 44 soldiers have been killed in battle since March, when Israel renewed fighting, and he believes the country has nothing to show for it.
He added that Hamas is not deterred by force and that the terror organization does not care if half the population of Gaza is killed.
“They will still feel victorious, and they will still continue this war because they are a religious organization," he said. “We are playing with ourselves, offering all kinds of deals to the other side that there is no way the other side can accept."
Watch the full interview:
WHEN WILL A CEASEFIRE HAPPEN?
(ILTV)
