(4 Mar 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jerusalem – 4 March 2025
1. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar entering room
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Gideon Saar, Israeli Foreign Minister:
"We don’t have an agreement on phase 2. We demand total demilitarization of Gaza Strip, Hamas and Islamic Jihad out and give us our hostages. If they agree to that, we can implement tomorrow. We’ll only have to, then, discuss the ratio for the terrorists that want to get out from our jails. OK? It was not, it was not agreed in the agreement. It was left to be agreed on phase two. There is no shelf agreement on phase two. There’s nothing in it. OK, so this is the situation."
3. Wide of press conference
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Gideon Saar, Israeli Foreign Minister:
"Since there is no shelf agreement on phase two, we said we are ready to negotiate on phase two. And in the meantime we are ready to extend the framework of the temporary ceasefire, but we have only one condition: our hostages. We want to release hostages. If it is not agreed, it is not agreed."
5. Wide of press conference
STORYLINE:
Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Saar reiterated on Tuesday that Israel is willing to negotiate on phase 2 of its ceasefire deal with Hamas or extend the actual phase if more hostages are released.
"We demand total demilitarization of Gaza Strip, Hamas and Islamic Jihad out and give us our hostages. If they agree to that, we can implement tomorrow," Saar told reporters at the Israeli Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem.
Since the first phase of the negotiated ceasefire ended on Sunday, Israel has cut off international aid to the Gaza Strip as a pressure tactic to force Hamas to accept a new ceasefire proposal that Netanyahu has dubbed the “Witkoff proposal."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the new ceasefire plan, which he says came from U.S. President Donald Trump’s Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, will avoid an “explosion” of violence and return to active fighting in Gaza.
But the White House has yet to confirm a new ceasefire proposal, saying only that it supports whatever action Israel takes.
Hamas has not accepted the new proposal, which calls for the militant group to release half its remaining hostages — the militant group’s main bargaining chip — in exchange for a ceasefire extension and a promise to negotiate a lasting truce.
A senior Hamas official said Monday the previous, three-stage ceasefire deal is Israel’s sole way to return its hostages held by the militant group in Gaza.
AP video by Moshe Edri
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