Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu said Wednes­day that Is­rael must keep open-end­ed con­trol of Gaza’s bor­der with Egypt, dig­ging in on his stance on an is­sue that has threat­ened to de­rail cease-fire ef­forts.

Ne­tanyahu’s com­ments came as the Unit­ed States is de­vel­op­ing a new pro­pos­al for a cease-fire and hostage re­lease, hop­ing to break a long dead­lock and bring an end to the near­ly 11-month-old war.

The ques­tion of Is­raeli con­trol of the Philadel­phi cor­ri­dor –- a nar­row strip of land along Gaza’s bor­der with Egypt, seized by troops in May –- has be­come a cen­tral ob­sta­cle in the talks. Hamas has de­mand­ed an even­tu­al full Is­raeli with­draw­al from Gaza in the mul­ti-phase truce deal.

Egypt, a me­di­a­tor in the talks along with the U.S. and Qatar, has al­so de­mand­ed a con­crete time­line for Is­raeli troops to leave the Philadel­phi cor­ri­dor. And on Wednes­day, the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, which es­tab­lished for­mal ties with Is­rael in the 2020 Abra­ham Ac­cords, al­so crit­i­cized the Is­raeli stance.

Speak­ing to for­eign jour­nal­ists, Ne­tanyahu re­peat­ed his stance that Is­rael must main­tain its hold on the bor­der to pre­vent Hamas from rearm­ing by smug­gling weapons in­to Gaza. He said it was a vi­tal part of the war goal of en­sur­ing Hamas can­not re­peat its Oct. 7 at­tack on Is­rael.

“Gaza must be de­mil­i­ta­rized, and this can on­ly hap­pen if the Philadel­phi cor­ri­dor re­mains un­der firm con­trol,” he said, claim­ing Is­raeli troops had dis­cov­ered dozens of tun­nels un­der the bor­der.

He said Is­rael would on­ly con­sid­er with­draw­ing from the cor­ri­dor when pre­sent­ed with an al­ter­na­tive force to po­lice it.

“Bring me any­one who will ac­tu­al­ly show us … that they can ac­tu­al­ly pre­vent the re­cur­rence” of smug­gling, he said. “I don’t see that hap­pen­ing right now. And un­til that hap­pens, we’re there.”

Fam­i­lies of re­main­ing hostages have stepped up their de­mands that he agree to a deal af­ter Hamas killed six hostages last week as Is­raeli troops ap­peared to be mov­ing to res­cue them. In an­gry pub­lic state­ments, hostage fam­i­lies have ac­cused Ne­tanyahu of block­ing a deal and po­ten­tial­ly sac­ri­fic­ing their loved ones’ lives for the sake of hold­ing the bor­der strip. Hun­dreds of thou­sands of Is­raelis have tak­en to the streets in re­cent days, call­ing for a deal and say­ing time is run­ning out to bring home the hostages alive.

Ne­tanyahu pushed back against the pres­sure, say­ing his stance was nec­es­sary to “en­sure Hamas doesn’t pose a threat to Is­rael.”

“I can un­der­stand the tor­ment of fam­i­lies,” he said. “But the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of lead­ers is not mere­ly to share the sen­ti­ment, the emo­tion, but al­so to ex­er­cise judg­ment.”

Asked by jour­nal­ists for a time­line on end­ing the war, he re­fused to give one. “How long can we do this? As long as it takes to achieve this vic­to­ry. And I think we’re get­ting a lot clos­er,” he said.

Ne­tanyahu re­peat­ed­ly in­sist­ed hold­ing the bor­der would al­so pres­sure Hamas to re­lease hostages. At one point, he er­ro­neous­ly claimed the in­va­sion of Rafah in May forced Hamas’ first re­lease of hostages – which took place months ear­li­er in No­vem­ber un­der a week­long cease­fire deal. He then said the deal was “the re­sult of our in­va­sion, the mil­i­tary pres­sure we put on them.”

The Pales­tin­ian news agency WAFA re­port­ed ear­ly Thurs­day that an Is­raeli drone strike killed five men and wound­ed an­oth­er in a car in Tubas in the West Bank.

The Is­raeli mil­i­tary said in a state­ment that it car­ried out “three tar­get­ed strikes on armed ter­ror­ists that posed a threat on the sol­diers,” with­out im­me­di­ate­ly elab­o­rat­ing. For more than a week, hun­dreds of Is­raeli forces have been car­ry­ing out the dead­liest op­er­a­tion in the oc­cu­pied West Bank since the Is­rael-Hamas war be­gan.