JERUSALEM, Sep 5: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that Israel will only agree to a permanent ceasefire in Gaza that guarantees the border area between southern Gaza and Egypt could never be used as a lifeline for the Islamist movement Hamas.
"Until that happens, we're there," he told a news conference in Jerusalem.
Netanyahu repeated his outright rejection of a withdrawal from the so-called Philadelphi corridor in the first phase of a deal, expected to last 42 days, saying international pressure would make it effectively impossible to return. For a permanent ceasefire to be agreed upon after that, Israel would need guarantees that whoever ran postwar Gaza would be able to prevent the corridor from being used as a route for smuggling weapons and supplies for Hamas.
"Somebody has to be there," he said. "Bring me anyone who will actually show - not on paper, not in words, not on a slide - but day after day, week after week, month after month, that they can actually prevent a recurrence of what happened there before," he said, referring to Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
"We're open to consider it, but I don't see that happening right now."
The Philadelphi corridor, along the southern edge of the Gaza Strip bordering Egypt, has been one of the main obstacles to a deal to halt the fighting in Gaza and bring Israeli hostages home in exchange for Palestinian
prisoners. —REUTERS
