Netanyahu firm with Trump on destruction of Hamas

Following meetings with President Trump and Vice President Vance, Netanyahu says Israel “determined” to not only return the remaining 50 hostages, but also to eliminate  Hamas as a military and governing force.

By David Rosenberg, World Israel News

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed his commitment to destroy Hamas’ military and governing capabilities in the Gaza Strip, listing it as one of Israel’s key objectives for the war in Gaza.

Following meetings with President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance at the White House Tuesday, Netanyahu’s office released a video statement from the premier early Wednesday morning summing up his second meeting with the president and his brief talk with Vance.

“I held an additional meeting today with President Trump in the White House, and afterward, a brief meeting with Vice President Vance,” Netanyahu said in the Hebrew video statement.

“We focused on the efforts to release our hostages. We are not relenting, even for a moment, and this is made possible due to the military pressure by our heroic soldiers.”

Reflecting on the deadly roadside bombing attack on an IDF force in the northern Gaza city of Beit Hanoun Monday night that claimed the lives of five Israeli soldiers and left 14 injured, Netanyahu lamented the “painful price” Israel has paid in the Gaza war.

The premier doubled down on Israel’s insistence that the war continue, however, until the remaining 50 hostages are released, and Hamas’s destruction as a fighting force and governing authority has been achieved.

“But we are determined to achieve all of our objectives: The release of all of our hostages – the living and the deceased, and the elimination of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, thereby ensuring that Gaza will never again constitute a threat to Israel.”

The comments come a day after Opposition Leader MK Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) cited the Beit Hanoun attack in his latest call to end the war in Gaza.

Lapid, who backed the war on Hamas for the first year and a half of the fighting, has since late June described the war as reaching a “dead end,” calling for Israel to wrap up the operation in the coastal enclave.

Netanyahu revealed that during his two meetings on Tuesday with the president and vice president he discussed the “implications and possibilities” of the “great victory” achieved by Israel and the U.S. during the 12-day military operation against Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear programs.

“Opportunities have been opened here for expanding the circle of peace, for expanding the Abraham Accords. We are working on this with full vigor.”