Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday once again rejected the idea of ​​declaring a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip without the release of hostages held by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.

“There will be no ceasefire, no general ceasefire in Gaza, without the release of the hostages,” he said during an interview with the US television network ABC News. “As for (…) short breaks – an hour here, an hour there – we are already doing them,” he added.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, said yesterday that his country would assume “total responsibility for security” in the Gaza Strip indefinitely after the war it declared on the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas ends.

“Israel will, for an indefinite period, have overall responsibility for security” in the Palestinian enclave, Prime Minister Netanyahu said during an interview he gave to American television network ABC News. “As we have seen what happens when we don’t have her. When we don’t have responsibility for security, we see the explosion of Hamas terrorism on a scale we could not imagine,” he added.