Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied Saturday that US President Donald Trump had strong-armed him into agreeing to the present ceasefire and hostage launch deal, and harassed that the struggle in Gaza “will finish for good when the phrases of the settlement that had been accepted are carried out.”
“We’re insisting that the settlement be carried out in its entirety,” together with the return of all of the useless hostages and Hamas’s disarmament, he stated in an look on the staunchly pro-Netanyahu Channel 14.
He additionally confirmed that he could be operating once more for workplace within the subsequent elections, at present scheduled for October 2026, and stated he was assured that he would win. Opinion polls apart from these carried out by Channel 14 have overwhelmingly and persistently predicted that Netanyahu’s present bloc of right-wing and spiritual events gained’t win a Knesset majority.
The premier has given dozens of interviews to overseas media retailers and podcasts because the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led onslaught that began the struggle. He has given few interviews to Israeli media retailers, virtually all of which have been with Channel 14.
Saturday’s look mentioned a variety of matters, from his relationship with the present US administration and its predecessor to the Gaza struggle and Iran — however largely skipped points much less comfy to Netanyahu such because the failures that led to the October 7 assault, or right-wing criticisms of the present ceasefire deal.
Netanyahu repeated his stance that if Hamas doesn’t conform to disarm, in accordance with the later levels of Trump’s 20-point peace plan, this shall be completed “the arduous means.”
Solely after Hamas is disarmed and Gaza demilitarized, “then the struggle will finish,” he stated.
Requested concerning the truce deal, Netanyahu denied that Trump had compelled him into agreeing to it, and performed up his personal function in creating the US president’s 20-point plan for peace.
“He didn’t drive this deal on me, as a result of I labored along with him on its wording,” stated the premier, including that he had made vital modifications to it proper up till the final minute.
US President Donald Trump talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu within the Knesset, October 13, 2025. (Chip Somodevilla/Pool by way of AP)
He stated that even whereas he was in New York for the UN Normal Meeting, he was working to make some “very favorable modifications for the State of Israel.”
He declined, nonetheless, to elaborate on what any of his obvious modifications to the language of the settlement had been.
“Trump stated that there had by no means been such shut coordination between an American president and an Israeli prime minister, and he’s appropriate,” Netanyahu advised the studio, to wild applause.
The premier appeared to dodge a query about whether or not the botched Israeli strike on Hamas leaders in Qatar had created any stress with the US, which maintains shut ties with Doha.
Netanyahu additionally used the chance to debate Washington’s involvement in Israel’s 12-day struggle with Iran again in June, when it assisted by hanging key nuclear services that Israel didn’t have the capabilities to achieve.
He stated that he had approached Trump with a seven-page define detailing the menace that Iran posed to Israel, as, in line with him, “it was a matter of months till Iran would attain one nuclear bomb, possibly two, possibly extra.”
“I knew we needed to act to take away this menace as rapidly as attainable,” he stated.
He stated that he had knowledgeable Trump that Israel would launch its struggle towards Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities, no matter whether or not Washington authorised.
Nonetheless, he stated, he had one request for Trump, which was for the US to “penetrate the depths of Fordo [the remote, hard-to-reach Iranian nuclear facility] with the particular signifies that solely the US has.”
“He understood me and agreed to it,” Netanyahu stated.
