A disaster. The Israeli media does not know how to deal with it. They try to keep it as quiet as possible.
The Associated Press reported on Sunday that the progress on a deal for the hostages is a result of Israeli military pressure in Gaza. Somehow they saw messages sent between the Hamas leaders in Gaza and the Hamas officials that are outside, and it was clear that Sinawar was being pressured to accept a deal because of the heavy price of Israeli military pressure.
These messages take account of the extensive loss of Hamas fighters and the extensive damage to Gaza and they therefore were pressuring the local murderers to accept Biden's proposal for a deal with Israel.
To put it more bluntly: Netanyahu's approach, the only continued heavy military pressure on Hamas will advance a deal for the hostages, was vindicated.
Amazing. All of the confident commentators who argued that Hamas will never give in, will now have to explain why they were right then and are still correct now. Those who explained what a big blunder it was to go into Rafa will now tell us at length why it was certainly necessary all along, and how Netanyahu was ultimately wrong. There is no chance that someone will get up and say, "I was mistaken," because those words do not exist in the lexicon of the haters of the current government.
The prime minister's office announced Israel's red lines in the hostage negotiations: no smuggling of weapons from Egypt, no return of thousands of armed terrorists to the northern part of Gaza, and Israel demands that all the living hostages are freed in the first stage.
In response the Israeli media shrieked: "The prime minister is undermining a deal for the hostages!" Why is that? Because in these days of delicate negotiations he announced that Israel has "red lines?" Who ever heard of that? To be sure Hamas announced that they have red lines and they accept that and "understand" their position.
Like they say in the demonstrations: For any price — bechol mechir. Because, in their eyes, the State of Israel is not allowed to have red lines. Only the Hamas murderers.
