Israel's Netanyahu rejects Hamas ceasefire demands and vows to secure ‘absolute victory’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected Hamas’s terms for a ceasefire and hostage-release agreement, calling them “delusional”.

Mr Netanyahu vowed to press ahead with Israel’s war against Hamas, now in its fifth month, until achieving “absolute victory”.

He made the comments shortly after meeting US secretary of state Antony Blinken, who has been travelling around the region in the hope of securing a ceasefire agreement.

“Surrendering to Hamas’s delusional demands that we heard now not only won’t lead to freeing the captives, it will just invite another massacre,” Mr Netanyahu said in a nationally televised evening news conference.

“We are on the way to an absolute victory,” he said, adding that the operation would last months, not years. “There is no other solution.”

He ruled out any arrangement that leaves Hamas in full or partial control of Gaza. He also said that Israel is the “only power” capable of guaranteeing security in the long term.

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