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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a video statement accusing Hamas of raising unacceptable demands in negotiations for the release of Israeli hostages.

Netanyahu said Israel “demonstrated its willingness to go far” in the talks.

He said, “But Hamas continues to hold on to its extreme positions, the main ones being the demand to withdraw all our forces from Gaza, end the war and keep Hamas intact.”

Netanyahu further said, “The State of Israel cannot accept this.”

“We are not prepared to accept a situation in which Hamas battalions come out of their bunkers, recapture Gaza, rebuild their military infrastructure and once again attack the surrounding settlements, southern cities, all parts of Threaten Israeli citizens in the country,” he said.

Netanyahu said, “Israel will not accept Hamas’s demands, which means surrender, and will continue fighting until all of its objectives are achieved.”

Netanyahu said that “Surrendering to the demands of Hamas would be a terrible defeat for the State of Israel. It would be a huge victory for Hamas, for Iran, for the entire axis of evil. It would be a terrible weakness in the face of both our friends and Will present.” Before our enemy.” “.

That weakness “will only bring the next war closer and take the next peace agreement further away. Because alliances are not built with the weak and defeated, alliances are built with the strong and victorious.”

Netanyahu said that “It is Hamas that prevents the release of our hostages. We are working in every possible way to free the hostages. This is at the forefront of our minds.” Israel was and remains ready to call a ceasefire in the fight to free our hostages. “That’s what we did when we freed 124 hostages and fought back, and that’s what we’re ready to do today.”

“In recent weeks, we have been working tirelessly to create an agreement to return the abducted people. And again, in stark contrast to what was published (in the media), to achieve this goal, We gave the negotiating team a very broad mandate to guarantee their release. We did this out of our deep duty to the abducted people and to end the terrible suffering of the families.