Netanyahu urges UK to pressure Hamas, not Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Tuesday criticized the United Kingdom’s decision to suspend about 30 weapons licenses to Israel for use in Gaza. The U.K. suspended the weapons licenses citing concerns that Israel was not complying with international law in Gaza, the U.K.’s foreign office said on Monday. The U.K. shares a total of about 350 additional unsuspended weapons licenses with Israel and fully supports Israel’s national security interests, it said.

Israel insisted it was waging a just war in Gaza with just means. Britain’s decision to suspend the weapons licenses would only encourage Hamas, Netanyahu’s office said. Hamas militants killed 14 British citizens during the terrorist organization’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which killed more than 1,200 people in total, Netanyahu’s office said. Five British citizens are still in captivity in Gaza, it added. But instead of supporting Israel’s war efforts, the U.K. is encouraging Hamas, Netanyahu said.

What did Netanyahu say about negotiations with Hamas? Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday insisted that his government agreed twice in recent months to cease-fire proposals that Hamas rejected. Those were U.S.-backed proposals that offered extremely generous conditions to Hamas, Netanyahu said. Just five days ago the deputy director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency noted that Israel was more serious about negotiating than Hamas was, Netanyahu said.

“These murderers executed six of our hostages. They shot them in the back of the head,” Netanyahu told reporters on Monday. If Israel conceded to further demands by Hamas, then it would teach the terrorist organization that killing hostages would get it concessions, Netanyahu added. Israel was willing to reach a cease-fire deal, and other countries must mount pressure on Hamas to make it willing to do the same, Netanyahu said.

What’s going on at the battlefield level in Gaza? The Israeli Air Force killed eight Hamas commanders in a precise strike near a hospital in Gaza City, the branch said Tuesday. One of the terrorists who died in the strike killed an Israeli citizen by the name of Gil Taasa in front of his children on Oct. 7, the IDF said.

The terrorist, Ahmed Fozi Nazer Muhammed Wadia, threw a grenade into Taasa’s home during the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, the Israeli government explained. Taasa threw himself onto the grenade to protect his children. Wadia moments later walked into the house where one child was injured by shrapnel and one was crying uncontrollably. Wadia opened the refrigerator, found a Coca-Cola, and drank it as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening, the Israeli government said.

The Israeli military took precautions to make sure civilians were not in the area of the strike and avoided conducting the strike inside hospital grounds, the IDF said.

Dig deeper: Read my report in The Sift from yesterday about how protesters in Israel are calling for a cease-fire deal to bring home the more than 100 hostages still in Gaza following the recent deaths of the six hostages.