Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a meeting of the security cabinet, giving his first public reaction to the proposal put forward by US President Joe Biden on Friday to end the war in Gaza.

Appearing noncommittal, he referred to gaps between what Israel had proposed and the plan that Biden presented, and said he was not ready to declare a ceasefire.

“Biden didn’t mention an important detail - that in the second stage, Israel didn’t agree to end the war, but only to “discuss” its end. What does it mean to discuss? We discuss only on our terms”.

From Netanyahu’s point of view, the indication of Israel’s “progress” in the negotiations is in its willingness to discuss the terms for ending the war.

The Prime Minister further stated: “Despite what President Biden said, the number of hostages that will be released in the first phase has not yet been agreed upon. There are many details in the deal, and the war will not end without us achieving all of our objectives. We will not give up on absolute victory. We can pause the war for 42 days for the purpose of returning the hostages. We cannot stop the war. The Iranians and all of our enemies are watching us, they want to see if we surrender. Do not address the reports, there are a lot of fakes going around. I won"t detail the specifics of the deal here, but what the US president described is not accurate, there are more details that have not been revealed”.

At a security cabinet meeting, Netanyahu confirmed that the two goals stated throughout the war remained the same: “We are determined to both dismantle Hamas and return the hostages (as I have said all along)”.