Benjamin Netanyahu: This is why Hamas has been playing hardball on a deal

The Wall Street Journal published a wide-ranging interview with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday, where he gave his opinion on a range of issues from October 7 to key subsequent events.

Netanyahu said that while Israel's initial and overwhelming offensive into Gaza after October 7th "scared" Hamas into the first partial hostage deal, by the time Netanyahu resumed the fighting - which many thought he wouldn't - "Americans, international bodies and liberal Israelis" increasingly hardened their terms, and Netanyahu said Hamas "said so openly."

The Prime Minister said he is presently pushing for a partial deal with a temporary ceasefire, much like the first one in November 2023, and that he has no intention of leaving Hamas in power "30 miles from Tel Aviv."

Regarding Syria, Netanyahu said that the massive air strikes against any and all Syrian strategic weapons once possessed by Bashar Assad's now fallen regime was for a simple reason: "We don’t want all the stuff the Syrians amassed falling into the hands of the jihadists."

Regarding the current ceasefire in Lebanon, Netanyahu insisted that launching the air strikes against Hezbollah's whole missile array and dismantling its infrastructure along the border mattered and that Hezbollah is so wounded that it "doesn’t want to continue the fight right now."