world news
Netanyahu: Small tactical pause to Gaza war possible
Israel could consider a small tactical pause to the Gaza war for an hour or so, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told David Muir of ABC’s World News Tonight program as he responded to the international pressure for a ceasefire.
“As far as tactical little pauses, an hour here, an hour there, we have had them before,” Netanyahu said.
“We will check the circumstances in order to enable humanitarian goods to come in or individual hostages to leave,” he stated on Tuesday.
Earlier in the day he spoke with US President Joe Biden about the possibility of such a pause to the war which was sparked on October 7, when Hamas killed over 1,400 people in southern Israel and kidnapped over 240 others.According to the White House, “the two leaders discussed the possibility of tactical pauses to provide civilians with opportunities to safely depart from areas of ongoing fighting.”
Such pauses, the White House said, would “ensure assistance is reaching civilians in need, and… enable potential hostage releases.”
Netanyahu: Ceasefire akin to surrender
Israel has insisted that any ceasefire must include the release of all the hostages, and that even then it could happen only with the understanding that the IDF still intends to pursue its military campaign to oust Hamas from Gaza.
The United States has backed Israel on that point, but the two sides have differed on a mechanism for humanitarian pauses, with Israel fearing that such a break in the fighting could become a de facto ceasefire.
“A ceasefire would be a surrender to Hamas. It would be a victory for Hamas and you would no more have it than you would have a ceasefire after the al-Qaeda bombings of the World Trade Center” in New York in 2001, Netanyahu told ABC.
“There will be no general ceasefire in Gaza without the release of our hostages,” he stressed.
A ceasefire would hamper the “war efforts” as well as efforts to secure the release of the hostages, he said.
“The only thing that works on these criminals in Hamas is the military pressure we are exerting,” Netanyahu said.
“Until we started the ground operation there was no pressure on them to release hostages. What we see is that the minute we started the ground action there was pressure,” he added.
Netanyahu also appeared to indicate that Israel might have some intelligence on the location of the hostages.
He also addressed the civilian cost of the campaign to Palestinians in Gaza, in light of the UN’s reporting that some 1.5 million of the 2.7 million people living in the coastal enclave have been displaced due to the war. Hamas has asserted that over 10,000 people have been killed.
Netanyahu said the number included at least several thousand Palestinian combatants.
“Every civilian lost is a tragedy. We are fighting an enemy that is particularly brutal. They are using their civilians as human shields,” he said, referencing the fact that Hamas places its infrastructure in civilian areas.
“It’s important to understand that there is no way to defeat terrorists” embedded in civilian areas without incurring civilian casualties, he stated.
Muir also asked Netanyahu if he took responsibility for the Israeli security failure that led to the October 7 attack.
“The responsibility of the government is to protect the people and that clearly was not met,” Netanyahu said, but he added that the issue was best addressed after the war.
Netanyahu agreed with Muir that he needed to take responsibility but not while conducting a military campaign.
When the war is over, he said, “tough questions are going to be asked and I am going to be the among first to answer them.”
world news
Israel will not release Nukhba terrorists in possible Gaza hostage deal – diplomatic source
Israel will not release any Hamas terrorist belonging to the Nukhba forces, which took part in the October 7 massacre of southern Israel, as part of a possible hostage deal, diplomatic sources told The Jerusalem Post on Monday evening.
The list of terrorists expected to be released from Israeli prisons as part of the deal’s first phase does include some sentenced to life, the source added. However, none are part of the Nukhba forces that carried out the October 7 attacks.
In addition, none of the 33 hostages expected to be released in the first phase of a possible deal are confirmed to be dead as of Monday, as per the diplomatic source.
Israel is expected to retain “territorial assets,” which could include the Philadelphi Corridor and an undefined security perimeter, as reported by the Post‘s Yonah Jeremy Bob.Israeli delegation to remain in Doha, potentially until deal is complete
Israel’s senior delegation in Doha, which includes Shin Bet head Ronen Bar and Mossad Director David Barnea, will remain in Qatar “for the time being,” potentially until a deal is signed, the source added.
This is a developing story.
world news
I doubted this generation, but they’ve proven they’re Israel’s heroes – a father’s prayer – opinion
Yesterday morning, I stood at the Black Arrow Monument down south. A place where history feels alive in the dust, where the weight of what happened a year ago still clings to the air. Just 400 metres from Gaza, they said. Four hundred meters—a distance my son could close with the sniper rifle he carries on his back.
A plume of smoke rose in the distance, curling into the sky like a question without an answer. “That’s Jabalya,” someone said. My chest tightened, though I tried to keep my face still. Jabalya. That’s where my son Amee is fighting. My youngest. My boy.
What does it mean for a father to stand so close to his child and yet feel farther away than ever?
What does it mean to be here, on this ground, while he is there, across that invisible line? I half-wished for something impossible—a gentle bullet fired from his sniper rifle, carrying a message that could cross the chasm between us. Aba, I’m here. I’m okay.But no message comes. There is no signal. Only silence.
They told us not to expect communication. They said it’s better this way. I try to believe them. I try to tell myself that no news means he’s safe, that silence is its own kind of reassurance. But the silence doesn’t reassure me; it fills me with everything I cannot know.
The nights are the hardest. They stretch out like an eternity, where the shadows on the wall feel like threats you can’t outrun. Dreams crack open like glass the moment you wake, leaving only fragments sharp enough to bleed. I find myself standing in the kitchen in the middle of the night, gripping the counter for balance, because, somehow, the walls of this house feel too fragile to hold the weight of the unknown.
I think of Amee’s smile, the way it lights up his whole face, the way it softens the edges of his enormous frame. My gentle giant. His presence fills a room, not with noise but with something quieter, something steady.
Does he think of the hum of home? The small, ordinary things that make it his? The clatter of dishes he places into the sink after cooking himself a delicious breakfast? The way he banters with his four brothers and his sister, their partners joining in, their laughter filling every corner of the house? The way he produces magic out of his hands for his nieces, crafting small wonders that make them squeal with delight?
Does he think of Vered, of his mother whose love has shaped every step he takes? Does he know how she waits at the window long after he’s gone, standing guard over a house that feels emptier without him?
I wonder what he carries with him, my son. He carries his rifle, his gear, the dust of Gaza clinging to his boots. But that is the lightest of his burdens.
The things he carries
He carries the weight of history, the weight of a people who have carried exile and return in their bones for generations. He carries the prayers of a thousand years, whispered into the walls of Jerusalem, carried on the winds of deserts and oceans. He carries the voices of his ancestors, voices silenced in Europe, in the camps, in the ghettos— voices that cry out now through him.
He carries this land, every inch of it—its beauty, its scars, its impossibilities. He carries the memory of borders breached, of flames rising over kibbutzim, of terror that came not from far away but from just across the fields.
He carries his people. He carries the weight of a nation that cannot rest and must always fight for its place in the world. He carries the dreams of his brothers, his sister, his family—dreams that he protects even when he cannot dream for himself.
He carries all of this, and he carries it not because he chose to but because it chose him. And still, somehow, he stands. He carries it with a strength that is not only his own but comes from those who came before him, from the generations that never stopped believing that this land, this fragile, beloved land, could one day be defended by their sons.
I think of his courage, his strength—not just his, but the strength of his generation. The generation we doubted, the generation we wrote off as distracted by screens and disconnected from purpose. How wrong we were. They are the generation that stands now, unflinching and heroic in ways we never imagined.
A general I met recently told me that he’s never known fear like this. He lost an eye in battle years ago, and two years ago, he lost his wife to cancer. But nothing—not war, not loss—compares to the fear he feels now, waiting for his son to come home from Gaza.
At Black Arrow, I stood just 400 meters from my son, and yet the distance felt infinite. It’s a distance measured not in meters but in everything I cannot protect him from.
And so, I wait. I pray. I pray that he feels us with him and that the memory of home is not a burden but a source of strength. I pray that when this is over when the smoke clears, and the silence lifts, he will return. That he will sit at the table once more, his smile lighting up the room, his seat no longer empty.
And I pray for every parent, every wife, every child waiting for their soldier to come home. I pray for this country that keeps sending its children into the fire and somehow finds the strength to keep going. I pray for the courage to wait, the strength to hold on, and the faith to believe that light can find its way back through the darkness.
US President Joe Biden on Thursday said that real progress was being made towards a Gaza deal as negotiators try to reach a ceasefire accord between Israel and Hamas.
Biden is reportedly pushing hard for a ceasefire agreement to be reached during his last days in office.
“We’re making some real progress, I met with negotiators today,” Biden told reporters at the White House.
“I’m still hopeful that we will be able to have a prisoner exchange. Hamas is the one getting in the way of that exchange right now, but I think we may be able to get that done, we need to get it done,” he added.Biden also said he spoke to Lebanon’s new president Joseph Aoun earlier. “He’s a first rate guy… They’re also working very hard.”
Collaboration with the transition team
Reports also indicate that the Biden administration is working together with President-elect Donald Trump and his team to achieve a deal before Trump is inaugurated on January 20.
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