Netanyahu said 50 hostages were still being held captive by Hamas. Of that figure, he said, only 20 are believed to be alive.
"I want to take them all out. We now have a deal that supposedly will get half of the living and half of the dead out," Netanyahu said in an interview on Newsmax show The Record with Greta Van Susteren that aired on Thursday.
"And so we'll have 10 living left and about 12 deceased hostages, but I'll get them out, too. I hope we can complete it in a few days."
On October 7, 2023, Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing about 1200 people and taking 251 hostages, according to Israeli figures. Israel's retaliation has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, and reduced much of Gaza to rubble.
The two sides have had two ceasefires - one in November 2023 and another in January 2025 - since the fighting started.
Netanyahu said Israel and Hamas will likely have a 60-day ceasefire, which the two sides could use to try to end the conflict.
Hamas on Wednesday said there were several sticking points in the ongoing ceasefire talks including the flow of aid, withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip, and "genuine guarantees for a permanent ceasefire."
Netanyahu's interview with Newsmax comes as he wraps his third visit to Washington since President Donald Trump took office in January.
Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike hit Palestinians near a medical centre in Gaza on Thursday, killing 10 children and six adults, local health authorities said, as ceasefire talks dragged on with no immediate deal expected.
Verified video footage from the strike in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip showed the bodies of women and children lying in pools of blood amid dust and screaming. One clip showed several motionless children lying on a donkey cart.
US-based Project HOPE said the strike had hit right outside its Altayara health clinic. "Horrified and heartbroken cannot properly communicate how we feel anymore," the aid group said in a statement.
The Deir al-Balah missile strike came as Israeli and Hamas negotiators hold talks with mediators in Qatar over a proposed 60-day ceasefire and hostage release deal aimed at building agreement on a lasting truce.
A senior Israeli officialon Wednesday said an agreement was not likely to be secured for another one or two weeks, however, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday he was hopeful of a deal.
"I think we're closer, and I think perhaps we're closer than we've been in quite a while," Rubio told reporters at the ASEAN summit in Malaysia.
Several rounds of indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas have failed to produce a breakthrough since the Israeli military resumed its campaign in March following a previous ceasefire.
Repeated attacks by Israeli forces in recent weeks have killed hundreds of Gazans, many of them civilians, and injured thousands, according to local health authorities, putting an enormous strain on the enclave's few remaining hospitals.
Dwindling fuel supplies risk further disruption in the semi-functioning hospitals, including to incubators at the neonatal unit of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, doctors there said.
An Israeli military official said that fuel destined for hospitals and other humanitarian facilities was let into the enclave on Wednesday and on Thursday.
However, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said that far more fuel was needed to keep essential life-saving and life-sustaining services operating.
with Reuters
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