Netanyahu rejects Palestine's independence in talks with top US Republicans

Israel's hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has renewed his absolute rejection of a Palestine's independence when he met a US delegation of Republican lawmakers, according to a statement from his office.

The delegation is visiting Israel on behalf of the pro-Israel lobby group, American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

"There is an attempt to shove a Palestinian state down our throats," Netanyahu told the delegation.

He falsely 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 captives that are being held in the besieged enclave.

The United States has for decades supported a two-state solution to the conflict.

To this day, successive American administrations have refused to recognise a Palestinian state, linking it to Palestinians and Israelis reaching an agreement.

Washington also opposes Palestine obtaining full membership in the UN by thwarting Palestinian requests for membership through the Security Council.

Some 72 percent of UN member states already recognise Palestine as a country, with Israel-blockaded Gaza, occupied East Jerusalem and occupied West Bank as its inseparable parts.

'Empower the negotiators'

The Israeli premier spoke with US President Joe Biden on the telephone earlier Thursday during which Biden threw his weight behind an immediate ceasefire to halt the violence in the coastal enclave "to stabilise and improve the humanitarian situation and protect innocent civilians."

The American president implored Netanyahu "to empower his negotiators to conclude a deal without delay to bring the hostages home."

Hamas said on Thursday that there is still no progress in indirect talks with Israel on a ceasefire 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 US support, are seeking to broker a truce in exchange for the release of hostages that remain in Hamas captivity following an October 7 cross-fence attack by the Palestinian resistance group.

The hours-long raid and Israeli military's haphazard reaction resulted in the killings of more than 1,100 people, Israeli officials, local media and independent investigators say.

Palestinian fighters took more than 250 hostages and presently 130 remain in Gaza, including 34 who the Israeli army says are dead, some of them killed by indiscriminate Israeli strikes.

Since then Israel has killed more than 33,000 Palestinians and wounded 75,577 amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities. Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on Gaza, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

The Israeli war has pushed 85 percent of Gaza's population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60 percent of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which has ordered Tel Aviv to do more to prevent starvation crisis in Gaza. Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories, said recently there were reasonable grounds to believe Israel was committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

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Source: TRT