Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will only pursue a deal with Hamas going forward that includes the release of all remaining hostages, with US President Donald Trump saying he agrees with the premier’s assessment that Hamas will not agree to a deal under the current circumstances, according to reports Monday.

“The prime minister would be willing to hold negotiations [for a deal] under conditions that we set for ending the war — and only if all the hostages were to be returned. Until then, we will not participate whatsoever in negotiations,” Channel 12 news quoted unnamed sources close to the premier as saying.

Netanyahu’s stance on whether to pursue a partial or comprehensive deal was unclear after the security cabinet decided Thursday to capture Gaza City, and the premier dodged a question on the matter during a press conference Sunday. The network said it now appears he is siding with his top adviser, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, who reportedly urged against any partial deals during Thursday’s security cabinet meeting.

Trump on Monday told Axios that he does not believe Hamas will agree to a deal under the current circumstances in Gaza, and declined to endorse or oppose Netanyahu’s recently approved plan to take over Gaza City in the north of the Strip.

In a brief phone interview with the outlet, the US president said that he agrees with Netanyahu’s reasoning “that more military pressure on Hamas is required.”

Trump added that Israel must decide what the next steps are in Gaza and whether to allow Hamas to remain there, while saying he believes that “they can’t stay there.”

The US president described his Sunday phone call with Netanyahu – during which the two leaders addressed the Gaza City operation — as a “good call.”

“I have one thing to say: remember October 7, remember October 7,” Trump told Axios, referring to Hamas’s 2023 massacre that started the ongoing war.

The remark echoed comments made by Netanyahu during his two press conferences on Sunday, in the wake of the dramatic cabinet decision, that “there are those who have forgotten October 7.”

The security cabinet on Thursday night approved a proposal by Netanyahu to take over the densely populated Gaza City in the northern part of the Palestinian enclave, bucking warnings from the army that the operation risks the lives of the remaining hostages in addition to potentially sparking a humanitarian disaster.

The only votes against the plan were from Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, both of whom seek to occupy the Strip permanently, in order to push Palestinians out of the enclave and reestablish Jewish settlements in their place.

Associates of Smotrich were pleased on Monday after the report that Netanyahu would no longer discuss partial deals, several Hebrew media outlets reported.

Officials in Smotrich’s inner circle said the finance minister would demand that Netanyahu stand by the reported decision and aim for a quick, total victory over Hamas.

Channel 12’s report that Netanyahu has rejected partial deals came as Hebrew media said Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer had argued for the same position during the cabinet meeting last week at which the Gaza takeover plan was approved.

The reports, which contained nearly identical quotes of Dermer but did not attribute them to any sources, noted that the minister cited American opposition to allowing a return to fighting.

“We don’t have all the time [we want], also from the Trump point of view,” the reports quoted him saying. “He cannot allow the war to continue for a long time.”

Dermer told ministers that “assuming talks continue for a long time, we can’t afford a partial deal. I’m not sure that after a 60-day truce we’ll have the leeway to return to fighting,” according to the reports.

Responding to his comments, Netanyahu reportedly asked Dermer: “So if Hamas comes with a partial deal, we refuse?”

Dermer reportedly replied: “If there’s a proposal like that, it seems so.”

According to Channel 12, National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi took the opposite side of the debate, urging Netanyahu not to close the door to a partial deal.

“I don’t understand how someone who saw the videos of [hostages] Evyatar [David] and Rom [Braslavski], as well as all the others that were published before them, can say: ‘Everything or nothing,'” Hanegbi said, according to quotes reported by Channel 12 over the weekend.

“The significance of this [decision] is giving up on the chance to immediately save 10 hostages,” Hanegbi reportedly said.

Meanwhile, Bishara Bahbah, a Palestinian-American activist who has served as a mediator in previous hostage-truce talks, said Monday that reaching a comprehensive deal to free the captives and end the war could take months.

“A full deal is reachable, but it’s going to take months,” he told i24News in an interview — though he said a full deal might be hastened if a partial deal is reached first.

Bahbah also told the outlet that Israel and Hamas were within reach of a partial deal weeks ago, before Jerusalem ordered the negotiating team back to Israel from Qatar and the US and Israel rejected Hamas’s offer.

He made the same assertion in a separate interview with Channel 13 news, saying: “There was an opportunity to come to a [partial] deal, and honestly, I don’t know why we did not pursue that, because if we did, we would have had a [partial] deal about two and a half, three weeks ago.”

But, he said, “I’m receiving signals that there is interest in renewing negotiations.”

The Haaretz daily reported Monday night that Israel and Hamas have both signaled willingness to negotiate a comprehensive deal, but that Jerusalem estimates the odds of talks bearing fruit are low.

Palestinian sources privy to the details were cited by the newspaper as saying progress on the talks depends on Israel’s willingness to cancel its plan to take over Gaza City.

Other sources involved in discussions told Haaretz that the cabinet’s approval of the Gaza City plan was “real and serious” — but that, if it becomes clear Hamas is willing to make significant concessions in negotiations, the plan’s implementation could be delayed or canceled altogether.

Haaretz also cited sources within Hamas as saying that the terror group has agreed to discuss demilitarizing Gaza and sending some of its leadership into exile, despite publicly refusing to discuss either possibility.

The Qatari newspaper Al Araby al Jadeed reported Monday morning that a Hamas delegation, led by politburo chief Khalil al-Hayya, would arrive in Cairo on Monday evening as part of efforts to revive the negotiation channel between Hamas and Egypt.

According to the Qatari report, Turkey helped renew the connection.

Speaking during an assessment Monday morning, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said the options the military presented to the security cabinet last week all had the goal of defeating Hamas — pushing back against critics who have accused the army brass of seeking a hostage deal at the expense of the other war goals.

“In accordance with the cabinet’s decision, we are at the outset of a new stage in the fighting in Gaza. We will develop the best method according to the defined objectives, while maintaining professionalism and the principles that guide our actions,” Zamir said, according to remarks provided by the IDF, as the army is gearing up to capture Gaza City.

“We will do this according to the readiness of the forces and the weaponry, with the hostages in mind — we will do everything to preserve their lives and bring them home,” he said of the new plan.

Zamir said the alternative plans that were presented to the cabinet were “all intended to bring about the defeat of Hamas, with full understanding of the implications in all aspects.”

It has been reported that Zamir opposed the capture of Gaza City and instead suggested to the cabinet that the IDF take a more gradual approach and encircle the city instead. Critics of alternate plans presented by the army have said they were more focused on freeing the hostages than on defeating the terror group.

“The IDF knows how to capture Gaza City, just as it knew how to capture Khan Younis and Rafah. Our forces maneuvered there in the past; we will know how to do so again,” Zamir said.

Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are holding 50 hostages, of whom 20 are believed to still be alive. There are grave concerns for the well-being of two of the hostages, Israeli officials have said, and the remaining 28 have been confirmed dead by the IDF.

All of the hostages are people abducted from Israel during Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack, except for one soldier who was killed in 2014 and whose body has been held in Gaza since.