‘We’ll do everything in our power’: Israel envoy’s pledge to get hostages homes amid airstrikes

Israel’s ambassador to Australia says his country will do anything in its power to bring home the last of its hostages as it pounds the Gaza Strip with airstrikes.

Israel’s ambassador to Australia Amir Maimon. Picture: Martin Ollman

Israel’s ambassador to Australia says his country will do anything in its power to bring home the last of its hostages as it pounds the Gaza Strip with airstrikes in a resumption of hostilities condemned by the Albanese government.

Ambassador Amir Maimon said Israel’s decision to end the temporary ceasefire and halt aid shipments into the Palestinian enclave followed Hamas’s refusal to abide by the agreement’s terms, and “concrete” intelligence that it was preparing another attack on the Jewish state.

Mr Maimon said Israel had an estimated 59 hostages still in Gaza, of whom 24 were thought to be alive if in poor medical condition. “We will do everything in our power to bring these people home in any way possible,” he said.

Gaza’s Hamas-controlled health authority said at least 400 Palestinians had been killed in Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday, local time, and hundreds more injured, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered “strong action” against the terrorist group after a two-month pause in the fighting, declaring “negotiations will take place only under fire”.

“This is just the beginning,” he said. “Military pressure is a nec­essary condition for the release of the hostages.”

Anthony Albanese has urged both Israel and Hamas to abide by the terms of the US-brokered ceasefire and hostage deal and protect civilians in the war zone.

Palestinian girls carry empty jerry cans and their belongings in backpacks as they join people leaving the eastern sector of the Gaza Strip, following the resumption of Israeli airstrikes. Picture: Bashar Taleb/AFP

But Mr Maimon said Hamas could end the war immediately if it wanted to. “It only requires Hamas to lay down their arms. It only requires Hamas to stop … controlling, terrorising the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, and to bring about immediate release of our hostages,” he said.

Despite tensions between Canberra and Jerusalem over the war, Mr Maimon said there were more points of agreement between Israel and the Albanese government than there were differences.

He said both agreed Israel had a right to self-defence, that the hostages must be freed and that Hamas should play no future role in the administration of the Palestinian territory. “The only difference between us and the govern­ment is that they believe that it’s possible that we will be able to accomplish (our goals) while ceasing our fire,” he said.

“In Israel, the view is that only military pressure will bring about the release of hostages, will bring about Hamas to lay down their arms and to give up their governing positions in the Gaza Strip.”

Gaza’s Abu Mershud family searches the debris of their home destroyed in an Israeli airstrike that killed seven relatives. Picture: Hassan Jedi/Anadolu via Getty Images

The return to fighting more than a year after the October 7, 2023, massacre comes amid a lack of clear public backing for the course by Israeli citizens. A poll by the Israel Democracy Institute found 73 per cent of Israelis supported a negotiated settlement with Hamas and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in exchange for the remaining hostages.

Israel agreed to a ceasefire in January, the first phase of which involved the return of 33 Israeli hostages, eight of them dead, and five Thai hostages, in exchange for some 1800 Palestinian prisoners and a surge of aid into Gaza.

Talks stalled on a permanent end to the fighting in exchange for the release of the remaining hostages as Israel refused to give up its ability to keep attacking Hamas and the terrorist group refused to accept formulas that would free more hostages in exchange for extending the ceasefire.

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said the breakdown of the ceasefire was disappointing and Australia would be “exercising our voice to see that a ceasefire is maintained”.

“We wanted to see the entire terms of the ceasefire fulfilled. To be clear, that does mean the return of hostages to Israel,” Mr Marles told the Today Show.

“That was part of the terms of the ceasefire. What we need now to be seeing is the international community supporting the full terms of the ceasefire to be fulfilled, (and) supporting all the parties in terms of a maintenance of the ceasefire going on.”