Israeli Prime Minister on ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas
(CBS, KYMA/KECY) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with Face the Nation moderator Margaret Brennan Sunday morning about the ongoing conflict in his region.
Brennan and Netanyahu spoke about the remaining hostages in the region, and whether we're close to a deal to release the hostages.
"Well, I'm not sure the exact duration, but I can tell you that we're all working on it. We want it. I want it because we want to liberate the remaining hostages. We've already brought half of them back. And I appreciate the effort, the combined effort of Israel [and] the United States to bring back the remaining hostages. I can't tell you if we'll have it, but if Kaas goes down from its delusional claims and goes down and bring them down to Earth, then we'll have the progress that we all want."
Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel
During the interview, Brennan and Netanyahu touched on global leaders distrusting the Israeli Prime Minister, with Netanyahu responding:
"I think that the U.S. agrees with us on the goal of destroying Hamas...And on the goal of releasing the hostages. The decisions of how to do that are left with us and with me and the elected cabinet of Israel, and we're doing that."
Talks then came to Hamas' war tactics, with Netanyahu saying in part:
"I think that any civilian casualty is a tragedy...we don't have an argument there, but this war has been forced upon us by a cynical enemy that not only targets our civilians, [but] has raped, beheaded, burnt babies alive, killed children in front of their parents and parents in front of their children. This enemy not only targets civilians, but hides behind civilians...Palestinian civilians. So they're committing a double war crime. I have to come back and say that in terms of the way this battle is fought, there is no parallel to the difficulty that we face.
Later in the interview, Brennan and Netanyahu talked about Israel being united amid the ongoing conflict between the country and Hamas, and protests within Israel.
"We've had protests for 30 years, but the Israeli people are united as never before. Last week, they voted 99 to nine in the Knesset for my proposal that says that the way that we have to do two things, we have to win the war, have total victory, but also not have an international dictate of a Palestinian state on its shove down our throats that would endanger Israel. The people are overwhelmingly united on this. When is the last time we had 99 votes in the Knesset? I'll tell you 30 years ago. So the people are united. The policy is right. The people supported, and I intend to take it to completion because that's what we have. We can't compromise with total victory because I'll tell you: We can't win the peace if we don't win the war and we will win this war.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel
To watch more of Brennan's interview with Netanyahu, click here.
