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Hamas to Learn the ‘Hard Way’ It Can’t ‘Bring Israel to Its Knees,’ FM Sa’ar Says Amid Renewed Gaza Fighting
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar attends a joint press conference with Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani (not pictured), in Rome, Italy, Jan. 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar warned on Tuesday that Hamas will learn “the hard way” that it will not be able to “bring the State of Israel to its knees,” saying his country had no option but to resume military operations against the Palestinian terrorist group in Gaza after negotiations to extend a ceasefire had failed.
“In the last two and a half weeks, we have reached a deadlock where there is no fire and also no return of the hostages, and Israel cannot accept this,” Sa’ar said during an appearance at the Nevatim Conference for the Development of the Negev.
“Sincere efforts were made to advance toward a framework,” he continued, noting that US President Donald Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, “proposed two different offers, and Hamas rejected both of them.”
On Tuesday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced they conducted “extensive” strikes against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip overnight Monday.
“This follows Hamas’s repeated refusal to release our hostages, as well as its rejection of all of the proposals it has received from US presidential envoy Steve Witkoff and from the mediators,” the Israeli prime minister’s office said in a statement. “Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength.”
Israel recently imposed a total blockade on Gaza after the first phase of the ceasefire with Hamas expired without an agreement to extend the truce.
During the first phase, which went into effect on Jan. 19, fighting stopped for six weeks while Hamas released 33 Israeli hostages (25 living and eight dead bodies) in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, many of whom were serving lengthy sentences in Israeli jails for terrorist activity.
A second phase was supposed to involve a full Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza and the release of the remaining hostages kidnapped by Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists from Israel. However, negotiations subsequently stalled, with Hamas rejecting a US proposal supported by Israel to release more hostages and extend the ceasefire while continuing to negotiate a permanent resolution.
The US, Qatar, and Egypt have been trying to bridge the differences between the Islamic terrorist group and Israel to restart negotiations in order to release remaining hostages held in Gaza and lift the blockade.
“If we had continued waiting, the situation would have remained stagnant,” Sa’ar said on Tuesday. “This strongly reminded me of the first 20 days after Oct. 7, until the ground entry into the Gaza Strip, when there was hope that perhaps Hamas would come to a deal. As long as we didn’t apply force, nothing happened.”
“Hamas will have to understand the hard way that it will not be able to bring the State of Israel to its knees,” he continued.
Israel appears to have support from Washington to renew its military operations in Gaza, the coastal enclave that borders the Jewish state to the south.
On Monday, the White House confirmed that Israel consulted the US before resuming military action against the Palestinian terrorist group in Gaza.
“The Trump administration and the White House were consulted by the Israelis on their attacks in Gaza tonight,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News. “As President Trump has made it clear, Hamas, the Houthis, Iran – all those who seek to terrorize not just Israel but also the United States of America – will see a price to pay: all hell will break loose.”
In a post on X, Sa’ar announced he had a conversation with the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, regarding Israel’s decision to resume military operations.
During his speech, Sa’ar also said that Hamas sought to divide Israeli society and dictate the terms of the ceasefire standoff. He dismissed claims by critics that a return to combat would harm the hostages’ chances of returning as “untrue and unfounded.”
“Returning to fighting is a continuation of our commitment to achieving the war’s objectives,” he said, reiterating that the goals remain the same: the return of all hostages, the destruction of Hamas’s power in Gaza, and preventing any future threats from the enclave.
On Tuesday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Jerusalem will not cease military operations against Hamas until all the hostages are returned.
“Hamas must realize that the rules of the game have changed, and if it does not immediately release all the hostages, the gates of hell will open, and it will find itself facing the full intensity of the IDF in the air, sea, and land, until its complete elimination,” Katz said during a visit to the Tel Nof Airbase.
“We will not stop fighting until all the hostages are returned home and all threats to the southern residents are removed,” he added.
The post Hamas to Learn the ‘Hard Way’ It Can’t ‘Bring Israel to Its Knees,’ FM Sa’ar Says Amid Renewed Gaza Fighting first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Iran and the United States agreed on Saturday to task experts to start drawing up a framework for a potential nuclear deal, Iran’s foreign minister said, after a second round of talks following President Donald Trump’s threat of military action.
At their second indirect meeting in a week, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi negotiated for almost four hours in Rome with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, through an Omani official who shuttled messages between them.
Trump, who abandoned a 2015 nuclear pact between Tehran and world powers during his first term in 2018, has threatened to attack Iran unless it reaches a new deal swiftly that would prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, says it is willing to discuss limited curbs to its atomic work in return for lifting international sanctions.
Speaking on state TV after the talks, Araqchi described them as useful and conducted in a constructive atmosphere.
“We were able to make some progress on a number of principles and goals, and ultimately reached a better understanding,” he said.
“It was agreed that negotiations will continue and move into the next phase, in which expert-level meetings will begin on Wednesday in Oman. The experts will have the opportunity to start designing a framework for an agreement.”
The top negotiators would meet again in Oman next Saturday to “review the experts’ work and assess how closely it aligns with the principles of a potential agreement,” he added.
Echoing cautious comments last week from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, he added: “We cannot say for certain that we are optimistic. We are acting very cautiously. There is no reason either to be overly pessimistic.”
There was no immediate comment from the US side following the talks. Trump told reporters on Friday: “I’m for stopping Iran, very simply, from having a nuclear weapon. They can’t have a nuclear weapon. I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific.”
Washington’s ally Israel, which opposed the 2015 agreement with Iran that Trump abandoned in 2018, has not ruled out an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming months, according to an Israeli official and two other people familiar with the matter.
Since 2019, Iran has breached and far surpassed the 2015 deal’s limits on its uranium enrichment, producing stocks far above what the West says is necessary for a civilian energy program.
A senior Iranian official, who described Iran’s negotiating position on condition of anonymity on Friday, listed its red lines as never agreeing to dismantle its uranium enriching centrifuges, halt enrichment altogether or reduce its enriched uranium stockpile below levels agreed in the 2015 deal.
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Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike
Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of Edan Alexander, 19, an Israeli army volunteer kidnapped by Hamas, attends a special Kabbalat Shabbat ceremony with families of other hostages, in Herzliya, Israel October 27, 2023 REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
Hamas said on Saturday the fate of an Israeli dual national soldier believed to be the last US citizen held alive in Gaza was unknown, after the body of one of the guards who had been holding him was found killed by an Israeli strike.
A month after Israel abandoned the ceasefire with the resumption of intensive strikes across the breadth of Gaza, Israel was intensifying its attacks.
President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said in March that freeing Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old New Jersey native who was serving in the Israeli army when he was captured during the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks that precipitated the war, was a “top priority.” His release was at the center of talks held between Hamas leaders and US negotiator Adam Boehler last month.
Hamas had said on Tuesday that it had lost contact with the militants holding Alexander after their location was hit in an Israeli attack. On Saturday it said the body of one of the guards had been recovered.
“The fate of the prisoner and the rest of the captors remains unknown,” said Hamas armed wing Al-Qassam Brigades’ spokesperson Abu Ubaida.
“We are trying to protect all the hostages and preserve their lives … but their lives are in danger because of the criminal bombings by the enemy’s army,” Abu Ubaida said.
The Israeli military did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Hamas released 38 hostages under the ceasefire that began on January 19. Fifty-nine are still believed to be held in Gaza, fewer than half of them still alive.
Israel put Gaza under a total blockade in March and restarted its assault on March 18 after talks failed to extend the ceasefire. Hamas says it will free remaining hostages only under an agreement that permanently ends the war; Israel says it will agree only to a temporary pause.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it hit about 40 targets across the enclave over the past day. The military on Saturday announced that a 35-year-old soldier had died in combat in Gaza.
NETANYAHU STATEMENT
Late on Thursday Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas’ Gaza chief, said the movement was willing to swap all remaining 59 hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel in return for an end to the war and reconstruction of Gaza.
He dismissed an Israeli offer, which includes a demand that Hamas lay down its arms, as imposing “impossible conditions.”
Israel has not responded formally to Al-Hayya’s comments, but ministers have said repeatedly that Hamas must be disarmed completely and can play no role in the future governance of Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to give a statement later on Saturday.
Hamas on Saturday also released an undated and edited video of Israeli hostage Elkana Bohbot. Hamas has released several videos over the course of the war of hostages begging to be released. Israeli officials have dismissed past videos as propaganda.
After the video was released, Bohbot’s family said in a statement that they were “deeply shocked and devastated,” and expressed concern for his mental and physical condition.
“How much longer will he be expected to wait and ‘stay strong’?” the family asked, urging for all of the 59 hostages who are still held in Gaza to be brought home.
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Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks
FILE PHOTO: Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said gives a speech after being sworn in before the royal family council in Muscat, Oman January 11, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Sultan Al Hasani/File Photo
Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said is set to visit Moscow on Monday, days after the start of a round of Muscat-mediated nuclear talks between the US and Iran.
The sultan will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, the Kremlin said.
Iran and the US started a new round of nuclear talks in Rome on Saturday to resolve their decades-long standoff over Tehran’s atomic aims, under the shadow of President Donald Trump’s threat to unleash military action if diplomacy fails.
Ahead of Saturday’s talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Following the meeting, Lavrov said Russia was “ready to assist, mediate and play any role that will be beneficial to Iran and the USA.”
Moscow has played a role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations in the past as a veto-wielding U.N. Security Council member and signatory to an earlier deal that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.
The sultan’s meetings in Moscow visit will focus on cooperation on regional and global issues, the Omani state news agency and the Kremlin said, without providing further detail.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss trade and economic ties, the Kremlin added.
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