Tal Heinrich, a spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Friday rejected a United Nations proposal calling for a "humanitarian truce" to be reached in the war between Israel and Hamas, telling Newsmax that a "ceasefire is not negotiable."
"What's happening right now in Israel is that too many Israeli families are sitting around Shabbat dinner tables without their loved ones," Heinrich said on Newsmax's "National Report." "A ceasefire is not negotiable because Hamas terrorists cannot get away with what they did."
The United Nations is scheduled to vote Friday afternoon on a Jordanian-led draft resolution on the crisis that calls for an "immediate, durable, and sustained humanitarian truce." It also demands that all parties comply with international humanitarian law and calls for the "continuous, sufficient and unhindered” provision of essential supplies and services into the Gaza Strip.
The measure has the backing of more than 40 UN member states, including Egypt, the UAE, and Oman. It also calls for the "immediate and unconditional release" of all hostages taken by Hamas.
"Calling for a ceasefire is basically calling for impunity for terrorists, and we cannot let that happen," Heinrich said. "The correct message that the United Nations of the civilized world should send out is that terrorism is simply a dead end. That is why a ceasefire is just not an option."
Israel's "clear and just military objective," she continued, is to dismantle Hamas.
"We have decided that we will no longer live next to this monster," Heinrich said. "When American parents put their children to bed, they tuck them in. They can promise them at night that there's no monster in the room, right? But Israeli parents cannot do it right now. Because we might have a monster in the room that will take the children to Gaza, that will kill the children in front of the parents and the parents in front of their children."
Hamas wants a ceasefire, she said, "because we're coming after them and we will get to them one by one."
Meanwhile, reports indicate that Netanyahu is facing domestic pressure to launch the official ground invasion into Gaza while hearing calls from U.S. and Western leaders to consider the casualties that will be involved. Heinrich said there will "definitely be a stage two" of the war with Hamas.
"We didn't want this war," she said. "We didn't start this war and we weren't even expecting this war. We had to launch a counter-offensive to dismantle Hamas, so it will come."
Israel's military and political leaders are looking at different variables in order to decide on the right timing and right conditions to launch the ground war, said Heinrich.
"We're also consulting with international counterparts because, as you know, some foreign nationals or dual citizenship holders are also being held in captivity in Gaza right now," she said. "It's a very complex situation, but once we decide to further act in Gaza, we will do so judiciously and we will do so decisively, and we will hit Hamas very hard."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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