Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told CBS News’ Norah O'Donnell, in an interview which aired on Thursday, that a deal to secure the release of some hostages held by Hamas is closer than before.
The proposal would see Hamas release some of the women and children hostages in exchange for a ceasefire that would last between three and five days.
Asked about the proposed deal and how close Israel is to securing the release of hostages, Netanyahu replied, "We're closer than we were before we began the ground action" and added the ground operation has "put pressure on Hamas to achieve a ceasefire."
"We'll have a temporary cease-fire if we can get our hostages back," Netanyahu told O’Donnell, adding, "I don't think it serves that purpose for me to elaborate further on that."
Netanyahu also insisted Israel is trying to wipe out Hamas "with minimal civilian casualties" and clarified Israel is "not seeking to occupy" Gaza.
"We want overall military responsibility to prevent the reemergence of terror," he said. "We're not seeking to occupy. That's not our goal. But our goal is to make sure what happens there is different. To do that we have to [do to] demilitarize Gaza and we have to deradicalize Gaza."
"Just as you had to have a different future after the conquest of Germany, you deradicalize, denazify Germany," he said. "After the conquest of Japan, you make sure that the aggressive policies of Imperial Japan are different. There was a cultural change. We need a cultural change here. We can't have a civilian administration enter Gaza that will not fight terrorists, that is committed to funding terrorists as opposed to fighting terrorists."
Netanyahu also said that liberating Palestinian Arabs from Hamas will "give them a real future." When asked whether that also means moving forward with a two-state solution, Netanyahu said the Palestinian Arabs need a leadership change.
"I say let the Palestinians have all the powers to govern themselves, but none of the powers to threaten Israel," he told O’Donnell. "And that means not only making sure that Gaza is demilitarized, but also that Gaza is deradicalized. And if you ask me, we need a different civilian leadership than the one that has been offered to the Palestinians today."
In a portion of the interview that was released earlier on Thursday, Netanyahu said that there are "strong indications" that Hamas kept hostages at Shifa Hospital.
"If they were [there], they were taken out," he noted, and added that Israel has intelligence about the current condition of the hostages, but would not elaborate.