Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with reservists from the Golani brigade on Tuesday and said he hopes “there will be good news soon” on the hostages taken by Hamas.
“We are making progress. I don’t think it’s worth saying too much, not even at this moment, but I hope there will be good news soon,” Netanyahu said in a video released by the government’s press office.
Hamas gunmen and their allies captured more 240 hostages during their deadly Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel in which they also killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians.
Senior Hamas officials said Tuesday that an agreement could be reached soon in which the militant group would release hostages and Israel would free Palestinian prisoners.
Israel, the United States and Qatar, which mediates with Hamas, have been negotiating for weeks over a hostage release that would be paired with a temporary cease-fire in Gaza and the entry of more humanitarian aid.
Similar predictions of a hostage agreement in recent weeks have proven premature.
Netanyahu said Israel is “currently focusing on a very strong and proactive defense in the north in order to achieve a crushing victory in the south.”
The remarks comes as the devastating Israel-Hamas war, now in its seventh week, continued.
Israel’s army is widening its operations across northern Gaza, where they battled Palestinian militants on Tuesday in the densely populated Jabaliya refugee camp, the territory’s largest.
The war sparked by Hamas’ surprise Oct. 7 attack into Israel has exacted a heavy toll on Palestinian civilians, particularly those who remain in the north after Israel repeatedly called on people to flee south.
More than 12,700 Palestinians — two-thirds of them women and minors — have been killed since the war began, according to Palestinian health authorities, who do not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths.
About 4,000 people are reported missing.
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