Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu pledged Tues­day to launch an in­cur­sion in­to the south­ern Gaza city of Rafah, where hun­dreds of thou­sands of Pales­tini­ans are shel­ter­ing from the al­most 7-month-long war, as cease-fire ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween Is­rael and Hamas ap­pear to be gain­ing steam.

Ne­tanyahu’s com­ments came hours be­fore U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Antony Blinken ar­rives in Is­rael to ad­vance the truce talks — which ap­pear to be one of the most se­ri­ous rounds of ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween Is­rael and Hamas since the war be­gan. The deal is meant to free hostages, bring some re­lief to the pop­u­la­tion and avert an Is­raeli of­fen­sive in­to Rafah and the po­ten­tial harm to civil­ians there.

Ne­tanyahu said Is­rael would en­ter Rafah to de­stroy Hamas’ bat­tal­ions there re­gard­less of whether a truce-for-hostages deal was struck or not. Ne­tanyahu’s com­ments ap­peared to be meant to ap­pease his na­tion­al­ist gov­ern­ing part­ners but it was not clear whether they would have any bear­ing on any emerg­ing deal with Hamas.

“The idea that we will stop the war be­fore achiev­ing all of its goals is out of the ques­tion,” Ne­tanyahu said, ac­cord­ing to a state­ment from his of­fice. “We will en­ter Rafah and we will elim­i­nate Hamas’ bat­tal­ions there — with or with­out a deal, to achieve the to­tal vic­to­ry.”

Ne­tanyahu has faced pres­sure from his gov­ern­ing part­ners not to pro­ceed with a deal that might pre­vent Is­rael from in­vad­ing Rafah, which it says is Hamas’ last ma­jor strong­hold. His gov­ern­ment could be threat­ened if he agrees to a deal be­cause hard-line Cab­i­net mem­bers have de­mand­ed an at­tack on Rafah. Ne­tanyahu met on Tues­day with one of those part­ners, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Ita­mar Ben-Gvir, ac­cord­ing to the min­is­ter’s of­fice, al­though it did not dis­close de­tails.

With more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 mil­lion peo­ple shel­ter­ing in Rafah, the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, in­clud­ing Is­rael’ top al­ly the U.S., has warned Is­rael against any of­fen­sive that puts civil­ians at risk.

Ne­tanyahu on Tues­day was ad­dress­ing the Tik­va Fo­rum, a small group of fam­i­lies of hostages that’s dis­tinct from the main group rep­re­sent­ing the fam­i­lies of cap­tive Is­raelis that has in­di­cat­ed it prefers to see Hamas crushed over the free­dom of their loved ones. Fam­i­lies and their sup­port­ers have demon­strat­ed in the thou­sands every week for a deal that would bring the hostages home, say­ing it should take prece­dence over mil­i­tary ac­tion.

Ne­tanyahu’s coali­tion is made up of ul­tra­na­tion­al­ist and con­ser­v­a­tive re­li­gious par­ties, and crit­ics of the Is­raeli leader say his de­ci­sion-mak­ing dur­ing the war has been dri­ven by po­lit­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tions rather than na­tion­al in­ter­ests, a charge Ne­tanyahu de­nies. His gov­ern­ment could col­lapse if one of the par­ties op­posed to a deal pulls out, a sce­nario Ne­tanyahu would try to avoid con­sid­er­ing his sup­port has plum­met­ed in opin­ion polls since the war be­gan, al­though it has seen a slight grad­ual uptick.

The cur­rent deal be­ing dis­cussed, bro­kered by the U.S., Egypt and Qatar, would see the re­lease of dozens of hostages in ex­change for a six-week halt in fight­ing as part of an ini­tial phase, ac­cord­ing to an Egypt­ian of­fi­cial and Is­raeli me­dia. Hun­dreds of Pales­tin­ian pris­on­ers held by Is­rael would al­so be re­leased.

Blinken, who was meet­ing with re­gion­al lead­ers in Sau­di Ara­bia and Jor­dan be­fore land­ing in Tel Aviv lat­er Tues­day, urged Hamas on Mon­day to ac­cept the lat­est pro­pos­al, call­ing it “ex­tra­or­di­nar­i­ly gen­er­ous” on Is­rael’s part.

But a stick­ing point re­mains over what hap­pens next. Hamas has de­mand­ed as­sur­ances that an even­tu­al re­lease of all hostages will bring a com­plete end to Is­rael’s near­ly sev­en-month as­sault in Gaza and a with­draw­al of its troops from the dev­as­tat­ed ter­ri­to­ry. Is­rael has of­fered on­ly an ex­tend­ed pause, vow­ing to re­sume its of­fen­sive once the first phase of the deal is over. The is­sue has re­peat­ed­ly ob­struct­ed ef­forts by the me­di­a­tors dur­ing months of talks.

Ne­tanyahu has re­peat­ed­ly re­ject­ed stop­ping the war in re­turn for hostage re­leas­es, and says an of­fen­sive on Rafah is cru­cial to de­stroy­ing the mil­i­tants.

The Is­rael-Hamas war was sparked by the un­prece­dent­ed Oct. 7 raid in­to south­ern Is­rael in which mil­i­tants killed around 1,200 peo­ple, most­ly civil­ians, and ab­duct­ed around 250 hostages. Is­rael says the mil­i­tants are still hold­ing around 100 hostages and the re­mains of more than 30 oth­ers.

The war in Gaza has killed more than 34,000 Pales­tini­ans, ac­cord­ing to lo­cal health of­fi­cials. The war has dri­ven around 80% of Gaza’s pop­u­la­tion of 2.3 mil­lion from their homes, caused vast de­struc­tion in sev­er­al towns and cities, and pushed north­ern Gaza to the brink of famine. —TEL AVIV, Is­rael (AP)

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Sto­ry by TIA GOLD­EN­BERG | As­so­ci­at­ed Press