Some senior Israeli officials are worried that comments by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the Jewish state’s objectives in its war against Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists could damage a potential hostage/cease-fire deal.

Netanyahu on Monday publicly defended the deal unveiled Friday night by President Joe Biden as his right-wing coalition partners Otzma Yehudit and the Religious Zionist Party threatened to bolt the government coalition should it approve any agreement that demanded a premature end to the war.

Biden’s deal has three phases, The Jerusalem Post reported, with the release of all the living hostages in the first two phases. The first phase, which would last for six weeks, would include a temporary halt to the fighting and the withdrawal of Israel Defense Forces soldiers from populated areas of the Gaza Strip. Women, the elderly, ill, and infirmed would be freed in this phase, in exchange for an unspecified number of Palestinian security prisoners, while the remainder of the captives would be released in the second phase.

Netanyahu stressed that Israel has gone a long way to return the hostages, “while adhering to the objectives of the war, first and foremost the elimination of Hamas,” the Post reported.

Israel is “insistent that we will achieve both” the return of the hostages and the destruction of Hamas, Netanyahu said.

“This is part of the outline” Biden presented and “not something that I have just added because of coalition pressure. This is something that we agreed on in the war cabinet unanimously,” Netanyahu said.

A senior Israeli official told Axios that Netanyahu’s remarks are “killing” the “constructive ambiguity” of the deal by stressing the demands he will put on the table during the negotiations about Stage 2, even before the parties agreed to enter Stage 1.

The “constructive ambiguity” appears in two clauses of the Israeli proposal, according to Axios.

One clause states: “No later than Day 16 the commencement of indirect negotiations between the two sides to agree on the conditions for implementing Stage 2 of this agreement, including those relating to the keys for the exchange of hostages and prisoners [soldiers and remaining men] and this should be concluded and agreed upon before the end of Week 5 of this stage.”

Another states: “All procedures in this stage, including the temporary cessation of military operations by both sides, aid and shelter effort, withdrawal of forces, etc., will continue in Stage 2 so long as the negotiations on the conditions for implementing Stage 2 of this agreement are ongoing. The guarantors of this agreement shall make every effort to ensure that those indirect negotiations continue until both sides are able to reach agreement on the conditions for implementing Stage 2 of this agreement.”

“Instead of keeping things ambiguous, [Netanyahu’s] statements are pushing Hamas to ask for more clarification, making it harder to get a deal,” another Israeli official told Axios, adding this is happening because of Netanyahu’s efforts to appease National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who leads Otzma Yehudit, and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who leads the Religious Zionist Party, and prevent a collapse of the coalition.

The prime minister’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment by Axios.

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