JERUSALEM – International and domestic pressure has mounted on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as US President Joe Biden said he was not doing enough to secure the release of Gaza hostages, after the killing of six captives.
Britain said it would suspend some arms exports to Israel, citing a “clear risk” they could be used in a serious breach of international humanitarian law.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant posted on X that he was “deeply disheartened” by London’s decision which he said came “when we mourn 6 hostages who were executed in cold blood by Hamas inside tunnels in Gaza”.
At a televised press conference, Netanyahu said he sought forgiveness for failing to save the six.
“I ask for your forgiveness for not bringing them back alive,” he said.
“We were close but we didn’t succeed. Hamas will pay a very heavy price for this.”
“These murderers executed six of our hostages, they shot them in the back of the head,” he said, rejecting the idea that Israel should respond with “concessions” in Gaza ceasefire talks.
Abu Obeida, spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, said remaining hostages would return “inside coffins” if Israel maintains its military pressure on Gaza.
A statement said “new instructions” had been given to militants guarding the captives on what to do if Israeli troops approached.
Late on Monday Hamas released a video that showed alive one of the six hostages whose bodies were found by Israeli forces in a Gaza tunnel at the weekend.
In Washington, Biden met US negotiators working alongside Qatar and Egypt to try to secure a truce deal that would free the remaining hostages in Gaza in return for Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.
A White House statement said he expressed “his devastation and outrage” at the killings of the six hostages.
Vice President and the Democratic candidate for November’s US presidential election Kamala Harris said “Hamas leaders will pay”, but added it was “long past time for a ceasefire and hostage deal”.
Ahead of the meeting, Biden had said negotiators were “very close” to a final proposal to be presented to Israel and Hamas.
Netanyahu said Monday Israel must retain control of the key Philadelphi Corridor on the Gaza-Egypt border — a significant sticking point in negotiations.
He called on the international community to apply more pressure on Hamas to end the war.
“We say yes, they say no all the time, but they also murdered these people and now we need maximum pressure on Hamas,” Netanyahu said.
“Hamas has to make the concessions.”
Israelis were gripped by grief and fury after the military said Sunday the bodies of six hostages, all captured alive during Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel that triggered the war, were recovered from southern Gaza.
A strike announced by the Histadrut trade union seeking a deal to secure the remaining captives’ release brought parts of Israel to a standstill Monday, although some cities were largely unaffected.
Israel’s labour court ordered an immediate end to the strike, calling it “politically motivated”, after Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich — a far-right leader who opposes a Gaza truce — urged it to ban the strike.
Alongside surging domestic anger, diplomatic pressure has also grown, with Biden on Monday delivering some of his strongest criticism of Netanyahu.
Asked by reporters if he thought Netanyahu was doing enough on the issue, he replied: “No.”
However, Netanyahu told his news conference: “No one is more committed than me to the release of the hostages. No one can lecture me on this.”
At mass rallies late Sunday, hostages’ relatives called for a truce deal to help free the remaining 97 hostages, including 33 the military says are dead.
AFPTV footage showed thousands of people in Tel Aviv Monday for a second night of protests demanding a ceasefire and hostage release deal.
Of 251 hostages seized on October 7, just eight have been rescued alive by Israeli forces, although scores were released during a one-week truce in November — the only one so far.
Israel named the six as US-Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Almog Sarusi, Ori Danino and Russian-Israeli Alexander Lobanov.
Hamas-run Gaza saw the second day Monday of localised “humanitarian pauses” to facilitate a vaccination drive after the first confirmed polio case in 25 years.
However, an AFP correspondent reported overnight air strikes and the civil defence agency said an Israeli strike near a school in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza killed five people.
Louise Wateridge, spokeswoman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said 87,000 children received a first vaccine dose on Sunday in central Gaza.
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini called the inoculation campaign a “race against time to reach just over 600,000 children” in the war-torn territory of 2.4 million people.
Tor Wennesland, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, visited Gaza on Monday and said “civilians continue to bear the brunt of this conflict”.
“I unequivocally condemn the horrifying civilian death toll in Gaza.”
He also condemned “the tragic killing of six hostages in Gaza by Palestinian armed groups”.
Israel’s military campaign against Hamas has so far killed at least 40,786 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.
The October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians and including hostages killed in captivity, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
The war has sent regional tensions soaring, with violence surging in Israel’s border area with Lebanon and in the occupied West Bank.
The Ramallah-based Palestinian health ministry said Monday at least 26 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched simultaneous raids on Wednesday across the northern West Bank. Militant groups have claimed 14 of the dead as members.
Three Israeli police officers were also killed in a shooting Sunday.
In Lebanon, the health ministry said an Israeli strike on a vehicle in the south killed two people Monday. AFP
