Netanyahu turns down new truce with Hamas: "It will continue until Hamas is destroyed"

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke emphatically this Wednesday about a possible new truce with Hamas. In a new statement, the prime minister said that "We will continue the war until the end. It will continue until Hamas is destroyed, until victory... until all the objectives we have set for ourselves are met: destroy Hamas, free our hostages and eliminate the threat from Gaza.”

The Israeli prime minister added that Hamas only has two options: "surrender or die." He issued this statement after learning that Ismail Haniyeh, leader of Hamas, would travel to Egypt. It is Haniyeh's first trip to Egypt in a month. The leader of the terrorist group traveled there to negotiate for the end of the war in Gaza.

Hamas' plans come face to face with Netanyahu's latest announcement. An official Palestinian source reportedly told Reuters that "Hamas's position remains the same: it does not want humanitarian pauses. Hamas wants a complete end to the Israeli war against Gaza."

Ending the war is a priority for the United States

At a press conference this Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the best thing would be to bring the war between Israel and Hamas to an end "as quickly as possible.”

"It is clear that this conflict needs to move - will move - to a phase of lower intensity," said Secretary of State Blinken. "We hope to see, and we want to see, a shift towards more selective operations, with a smaller number of forces that are really focused on dealing with the Hamas leadership, the tunnel network and a few other different things."

24 hours without air raid alarms in Israel

The situation at the Gaza Strip and on the border with Lebanon is stabilizing. The Israel Defense Forces reported this Wednesday that for the first time since October 7 , 24 hours went by without warnings for rockets launched against Israel.

In the north, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi visited troops stationed around the Lebanese border. There he claimed that the situation in the north will be increasingly safer and that work will be done to keep it that way in the coming years.

The mother of one of the hostages that the IDF mistakenly killed exonerates the military

"It's not your fault," Yotam Haim's mother said Wednesday in a message to the IDF soldiers who shot three hostages last week, whom they mistook for Hamas terrorists in Gaza.

Iris Haim assured in her message that neither she nor her relatives consider them responsible for her son's death. "I know that everything that happened is not at all your fault, nor anyone's fault except Hamas, that his name is erased and his memory erased from the earth," the mother said.

UN vote on Gaza aid postponed

The UN Security Council on Wednesday postponed its vote to send more humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. The voting session was postponed at the request of the United States, a permanent member of the Security Council.

According to United Nations sources consulted by Reuters, "the negotiations are ongoing and need more time. A hasty vote does not seem like it will end well." The resolution pending a vote was presented by the United Arab Emirates and aims to reduce Israel's control over humanitarian aid entering Gaza.