Netanyahu says he okayed plans for Rafah op, Hamas demands still ‘absurd’ but talks to go on

 While calling Hamas’s latest demands for a hostage release deal “absurd,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday that Israel would send a delegation to Qatar to continue talks on a potential truce “once the security cabinet discusses the Israeli position.”

At the same time, Netanyahu’s office said he had approved military operational plans for an offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah — a stick Jerusalem continues to hold over the terror group in efforts to reach a hostage release.

Israel has said Rafah remains Hamas’s last major stronghold in the Strip after the IDF operated in the north and center of the Palestinian enclave. It has said an offensive there is necessary to achieve the war’s goals and is not a question of “if” but “when.”