FILE PHOTO: Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gives a statement during a visit to the site of the Weizmann Institute of Science, which was hit by an Iranian missile barrage, in the central city of Rehovot, Israel June 20, 2025. JACK GUEZ/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

i24 News – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met last Friday with Likud MK Ariel Kellner to discuss advancing a bill that would establish an alternative commission of inquiry into the October 7 massacre.

According to sources close to the matter, the legislative initiative has made no progress.

The meeting has drawn sharp criticism from opposition lawmakers. Deputy Vladimir Beliak (Yesh Atid) accused Netanyahu of “continuing to mistreat bereaved families and all the victims of the war,” asserting that a national commission of inquiry will be created, period.” Deputy Naama Lazimi wrote on X, “So Netanyahu is sending Kellner as a proxy to pass a law that will exempt him from all responsibility for the massacre that took place under his governance? Who would have thought that Hamas’s financier would act this way?”

The Knesset is scheduled to hold a debate on Monday, at the opposition’s request and in the presence of the Prime Minister, on the creation of a national commission of inquiry to examine the failures of October 7. Yesh Atid emphasized, “765 days after the outbreak of the October 7 war, the Israeli government refuses to create a national commission that would provide answers to bereaved families. We will not stop fighting for them.”

The debate comes just days before the government must respond to a petition filed with the Supreme Court calling for the establishment of a national commission. The court has noted that “there is no real controversy regarding the very need to create a national commission with broad investigative powers.”

Palestinian Hamas terrorists stand guard on the day of the handover of hostages held in Gaza since the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack, as part of a ceasefire and a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 22, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hatem Khaled

Hamas fighters holed up in the Israeli-held Rafah area of Gaza will not surrender to Israel, the group’s armed wing said on Sunday, urging mediators to find a solution to a crisis that threatens the month-old ceasefire.

Sources close to mediation efforts told Reuters on Thursday that fighters could surrender their arms in exchange for passage to other areas of the enclave under a proposal aimed at resolving the stalemate.

Egyptian mediators have proposed that, in exchange for safe passage, fighters still in Rafah surrender their arms to Egypt and give details of tunnels there so they can be destroyed, said one of the sources, an Egyptian security official.

Sunday’s statement from Al-Qassam Brigades held Israel responsible for engaging the fighters, who it said were defending themselves.

“The enemy must know that the concept of surrender and handing oneself over does not exist in the dictionary of the Al-Qassam Brigades,” the group said.

US special envoy Steve Witkoff said on Thursday that the proposed deal for about 200 fighters would be a test for a broader process to disarm Hamas forces across Gaza.

Al-Qassam Brigades did not comment directly on the continuing talks over the fighters in Rafah but implied that the crisis could affect the ceasefire.

“We place the mediators before their responsibilities, and they must find a solution to ensure the continuation of the ceasefire and prevent the enemy from using flimsy pretexts to violate it and exploit the situation to target innocent civilians in Gaza,” the group said.

Since the US-brokered ceasefire took effect in Gaza on October 10, the Rafah area has been the scene of at least two attacks on Israeli forces, which Israel has blamed on Hamas. The militant group has denied responsibility.

Rafah has been the scene of the worst violence since the ceasefire took hold, with three Israeli soldiers killed, prompting Israeli retaliation that killed dozens of Palestinians.

Separately, Al-Qassam Brigades said it will hand over the body of deceased Israeli soldier Hadar Goldin in Gaza on Sunday at 2 p.m. (1200 GMT).

Since the ceasefire, Hamas has handed over the bodies of 23 of 28 deceased hostages. Hamas has said the devastation in Gaza has made locating the bodies difficult. Israel accuses Hamas of stalling.

Israel has released to Gaza the bodies of 300 Palestinians, according to the territory’s health ministry.

Local health authorities said on Sunday that one man was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Bani Suhaila east of Khan Younis, south of the enclave. The Israeli military made no immediate comment.

FILE PHOTO: John K. Hurley, U.S. President Trump’s nominee for Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Crimes at Department of the Treasury, attends a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 10, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Mohatt/File Photo

The United States seeks to take advantage of a “moment” in Lebanon in which it can cut Iranian funding to Hezbollah and press the group to disarm, the US Treasury Department’s top sanctions official said.

In a late Friday interview, John Hurley, the undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said Iran has managed to funnel about $1 billion to Hezbollah this year despite a raft of Western sanctions that have battered its economy.

The US has adopted a “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran meant to curb its uranium enrichment and regional influence, including in Lebanon where Iran-backed Hezbollah is also weakened after Israel shattered its military power in a 2023-24 war.

Late last week Washington sanctioned two individuals accused using money exchanges to help fund Hezbollah, which is deemed a terrorist group by several Western governments and Gulf states.

“There’s a moment in Lebanon now. If we could get Hezbollah to disarm, the Lebanese people could get their country back,” Hurley said.

“The key to that is to drive out the Iranian influence and control that starts with all the money that they are pumping into Hezbollah,” he told Reuters in Istanbul as part of a tour of Turkey, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates and Israel meant to raise pressure on Iran.

IRANIAN ECONOMY HIT BY SNAPBACK U.N. SANCTIONS

Tehran has leaned on closer ties with China, Russia and regional states including the UAE since September, when talks to curb its disputed nuclear activity and missile program broke down, prompting the reinstatement of United Nations sanctions.

Western powers accuse Iran of secretly developing nuclear weapons capability. Tehran, whose economy now risks hyperinflation and a severe recession, says its nuclear program is wholly for civilian power purposes.

US ally Israel says Hezbollah is trying to rebuild its capabilities and on Thursday carried out heavy airstrikes in southern Lebanon despite a ceasefire deal agreed a year ago.

Lebanon’s government has committed to disarming all non-state groups, including Hezbollah, which was founded in 1982 by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, spearheaded the Iran-backed “Axis of Resistance,” and opened fire on Israel declaring solidarity with Palestinians when war began in Gaza in 2023.

While the group, which is also a political force in Beirut, has not obstructed Lebanese troops confiscating its caches in the country’s south, it has rejected disarming in full.

Hurley, in his first trip to the Middle East since taking office under President Donald Trump’s administration, has pressed the case against Iran in meetings with government officials, bankers and private sector executives.

“Even with everything Iran has been through, even with the economy not in great shape, they’re still pumping a lot of money to their terrorist proxies,” he said.