Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday reiterated his absolute rejection of a Palestinian state during a meeting with a U.S. delegation of Republican lawmakers.
The delegation is visiting Israel on behalf of the pro-Israel lobby group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
“There is an attempt to shove a Palestinian state down our throats,” Netanyahu told the delegation, according to a statement from his office.
He claimed a Palestinian state “will serve as another refuge for terrorism, another launch pad for an attack, as was the Hamas ‘state’ in Gaza.”
“The vast majority of Israelis oppose such a thing,” he claimed.
Netanyahu also reviewed developments in the ongoing Israeli onslaught against Gaza with the delegation and his efforts to release Israeli hostages that are being held in the enclave.
The meeting came hours after the Israeli premier spoke with U.S. President Joe Biden.
Biden threatened to condition support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza on it taking concrete steps to protect aid workers and civilians, seeking for the first time to leverage U.S. aid to influence Israeli military behavior.
Biden’s warning followed a deadly Israeli attack on World Central Kitchen aid workers killing seven volunteers that spurred new calls from the president’s fellow Democrats to place conditions on U.S. aid to Israel. Israel said the attack was a mistake.
Biden also told Netanyahu that an “immediate cease-fire is essential” and urged Israel to reach such an accord “without delay,” according to the White House, which described the conversation as “direct” and “honest.”
Israeli strikes on Gaza have killed more than 33,000 people, mostly women and children, according to local health officials, and have created a humanitarian catastrophe.
The conflict began on Oct. 7, when the Palestinian resistance group Hamas stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, and taking around 250 people hostage.
Hamas said Thursday that there is still no progress in indirect talks with Israel on a cease-fire deal because Tel Aviv is “intransigent,” and has rejected every proposal that has been put forward.
The talks, which are being mediated by Egypt and Qatar, with U.S. support, are seeking to broker a truce in exchange for the release of hostages.
Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of mass starvation.
The offensive has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed by Israel, according to the U.N.
Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which last week asked it to do more to prevent famine in Gaza.
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