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Netanyahu between devil and the deep blue sea: Top Hamas official

Sunday, 31 December 2023 6:37 AM [ Last Update: Sunday, 31 December 2023 6:50 AM ]

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at a press conference in the 1948-occupied territories on October 28, 2023. (Photo via social media)

The Palestinian Hamas resistance movement has reacted to reports that Israeli officials have rejected prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s request to hold a joint press conference with him, stating that the chairman of the Likud party has two choices that are both equally unpleasant.

“Netanyahu is between the devil and the deep blue sea. He must either step down and stand trial before settlers, or continue the Gaza onslaught and face justice at the hands of fighters from the al-Qassam Brigades – Hamas’s military wing,” Izzat al-Rishq, a member of the political bureau of Hamas, said late on Saturday.

He added that Netanyahu is now isolated and rejected even by high-profile figures of the regime’s war machine.

“Crest-fallen Netanyahu is trying to escape from his repeated failures,” Rishq said, noting that Netanyahu, despite having declared opposition to any of Hamas’ provisions, has come to the terms that it is the Palestinian resistance front that is imposing conditions and has the upper hand on the battlefield.

“By God’s grace, resistance fighters will emerge victorious at the end of the Gaza war, and will terminate all forms of the Zionist occupation,” the senior Hamas official said.

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The fate of Netanyahu and the Israeli military hang in the balance amid developments on the ground in Gaza. Israelis will eventually rise up against him as they are really fed up with his flat-out lies, Rishq continued.

“In the face of fallen victims as well the courage and resilience that Palestinians have put up, the aggression on Gaza must stop before anything else. The Palestinian nation will not settle for less than complete removal of all restrictions and livelihood in full freedom,” the Hamas official pointed out.

On Saturday evening, Israeli minister of military affairs Yoav Gallant and war cabinet member Benny Gantz turned down Netanyahu’s request to hold a joint press conference with him.

A source in Gantz’s National Unity party told the Hebrew-language Walla news site that “there is no special reason to hold the [press] conference. We did not see it as right to take part.”

Channel 13 news attributed the refusal by Gantz and Gallant to their anger at Netanyahu for preventing the war cabinet from deliberating the issue of “the day after” in Gaza, along with concerns the prime minister will again make political statements at the event.

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