CBS News
Netanyahu rejects Hamas’ Gaza cease-fire demands, says troops will push into Rafah
Tel Aviv, Israel — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected Hamas demands for a cease-fire and vowed to press ahead with Israel’s military offensive in Gaza until achieving what he called “absolute victory.” He also said — despite myriad warnings from humanitarian agencies of possible dire consequences — that he had ordered the Israel Defense Forces to prepare to push into the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
Most of the roughly 1.5 million Palestinians displaced from their homes by the war in Gaza have packed into the southern town near the border with Egypt. Many are living in squalid tent camps and overflowing U.N.-run shelters.
Netanyahu made the comments Wednesday shortly after meeting visiting U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has been traveling the region in hopes of securing a cease-fire agreement.
GPO/Handout/Anadolu/Getty
The U.S. has been pushing Israel to adjust its tactics in Gaza amid soaring deaths. Officials in the Hamas-run enclave say the death toll is nearing 28,000. Many of those casualties have been women and children, but Hamas officials do not differentiate between combatants and civilians in their statistics.
“We are on the way to an absolute victory,” Netanyahu said, adding that the IDF’s operation in Gaza would last months, not years.
“There is no other solution,” the Israeli leader said, adding that agreeing to the terms proposed by Hamas, which has long been designated as a terror organization by Israel, Hamas and the European Union, would “invite another massacre.”
Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 terror attack on southern Israel, which saw the militants kill about 1,200 people and take more than 200 others hostage, sparked the current war in the densely-populated Gaza Strip, which Hamas has controlled for almost two decades.
He ruled out any arrangement that leaves Hamas in full or partial control of Gaza, which the group’s latest proposal would effectively have done, according to full details of it published by a media outlet closely associated with the group’s Lebanese allies, Hezbollah.
Netanyahu also said Israel was the “only power” capable of guaranteeing security in the long term.
The Israeli premier also called for the replacement of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
Blinken was scheduled to give a news conference later Wednesday.
Watch CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Watch CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Legendary TV icon Betty White will be honored in 2025 with a stamp, the U.S. Postal Service announced on Friday.
The “Golden Girls” and “Mary Tyler Moore Show” actor “shared her wit and warmth with viewers for seven decades,” the news release from the USPS read.
U.S. Postal Service
“The comedic actor, who gained younger generations of fans as she entered her 90s, was also revered as a compassionate advocate for animals,” the USPS said.
The image of White, who died in 2021, was created based on a 2010 photograph, the USPS said. The USPS said the list of new stamps released on Friday is a partial one, with additional stamps to be announced in the coming weeks and months.
“This early glimpse into our 2025 stamp program demonstrates our commitment to providing a diverse range of subjects and designs for both philatelists and stamp enthusiasts,” said Lisa Bobb-Semple, stamp services director for USPS.
White launched her TV career in daytime talk shows when the medium was still in its infancy and endured well into the age of cable and streaming. Her combination of sweetness and edginess gave life to a roster of quirky characters in shows from the sitcom “Life With Elizabeth” in the early 1950s to oddball Rose Nylund in “The Golden Girls” in the ’80s to “Boston Legal,” which ran from 2004 to 2008.
White died in December 2021. She was 99 and just a few weeks shy of what would have been her 100th birthday on Jan. 17.
When asked how she had managed to be universally beloved during her long career, White summed it up with a dimpled smile: “I just make it my business to get along with people so I can have fun. It’s that simple.”
The USPS said it will also honor pianist and composer Allen Toussaint, who died in 2015 at the age of 77.
