Reuters. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday (September 4) 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.
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.
The families of many hostages, including some of the six whose bodies were recovered from a tunnel in southern Gaza on Sunday (September 1), have accused him of sacrificing their loved ones by insisting on keeping troops in the corridor.
But he said maintaining pressure on Hamas was the best way to return the 101 hostages still remaining in Gaza.
