Olmert: We must make peace with Hamas… and the International Community will force us to end the war in this case
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned that the international community “will force Israel to end the war” against the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip, “if the Israeli government continues to refuse to reveal its vision for the sector after the war.”
In an interview with Channel 12, Olmert stated, “If we do not provide a vision for the next stage, we will not be allowed to continue the military operation to eliminate Hamas capabilities.” Olmert, who has frequently criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, emphasized that if Israel wants to gain time and patience from the international community, it must announce that it will withdraw from the Gaza Strip after the war and present a clear vision for post-Hamas Gaza.
“We must clarify to the world what we want,” Olmert said, warning that not disclosing the position on resuming negotiations with the Palestinians, referring to the two-state solution, will cause his country to “lose the patience and support of the international community.” Olmert added that the Netanyahu government “does not do that because it is not ready to take a step in this direction; it believes it can continue to deceive the international community.”
The former Israeli Prime Minister considered that the Palestinian Authority “is not friendly to us but is on the other side,” yet its forces “work with our security forces in the West Bank, while we are fighting in Gaza, and we have no other partner.”
He explained that excluding the idea of negotiations with the Palestinian Authority “tells the international community that we do not care about a future political solution,” adding, “We deluded ourselves that the Palestinian problem did not exist until it exploded in our faces on October 7th in an unbearable way.” Olmert concluded, “We must make peace with our enemies, either with the Palestinian Authority or with Hamas,” and at the end of his interview, he called on Netanyahu to resign, stating, “Every minute he remains in power, he inflicts damage on Israel.”
Israel intensified its Saturday shelling of the Gaza Strip for the second consecutive day after the end of the truce with Hamas. Netanyahu decided to recall a team from the Mossad intelligence agency from Qatar after reaching a “dead end” in negotiations with the movement.
He clarified that he targeted the “northern Gaza Strip” with artillery and airstrikes, specifically “terrorist cells,” “the mosque used by the Islamic Jihad as an operational command center,” and a “weapons warehouse.” In addition, he confirmed the killing of a “Hamas battalion commander.” Meanwhile, Hamas confirmed launching rockets at Tel Aviv, and sirens sounded across central Israel.
The temporary ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas movement collapsed since Friday, leading to the resumption of clashes and Israeli airstrikes. The conflict has claimed the lives of over 15,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them civilians, since the outbreak of the conflict on October 7th, displacing over a million people from the north to the south. They have crowded into unprepared shelters and schools, suffering from a severe shortage of humanitarian aid.
