Israeli Security Chiefs Advise Netanyahu to Rethink Hostage Deal Strategy

Gaza (Palestine Foundation Information Center) Families of Israeli captives held in Gaza protested on Monday calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach a deal to free the hostages. The protest was a day after a select group of Israeli ministers and top security brass reportedly planned to tell an emergency meeting on efforts to free the Israeli captives that agreeing to an end to the war with Hamas was the only way to reach a deal.

Dozens of family members of Israeli captives and their supporters demonstrated outside Netanyahu’s residence in occupied Al-Quds (Jerusalem), calling on him to reach a deal to free the captives held by Hamas in Gaza.

They warned that a deal is even more urgent with winter approaching.

“The hostages won’t survive the freezing cold in the tunnels of Gaza,” the organizers said in a statement, according to The Times of Israel.

“While Netanyahu and his team are busy trying to skew public opinion, 101 hostages are dying in impossible conditions.”

The protest on Monday was preceded by another rally, also outside Netanyahu’s residence, to call on the Israeli premier to release the captives and end the war in Gaza.

On Sunday evening, Netanyahu hosted an emergency meeting with some ministers and top security chiefs at the Kirya Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv.

The head of the Shin Bet security agency, Ronen Bar, Israeli Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, Mossad Director David Barnea, and the Israeli military’s hostage point man Maj. Gen. (res.) Nitzan Alon were set to tell ministers that Hamas is still demanding an end to the war and the military’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, even after troops killed the Palestinian resistance group’s leader Yahya Sinwar last month, unnamed sources told multiple Hebrew media outlets.

The security chiefs planned on emphasizing that agreeing to such demands would be the only way to reach a deal, the reports said.

A senior defense official told Channel 13 news that Barnea was set to present new options for reaching a deal given Hamas’s stance, with the report not going into further detail.

Defense Minister Israel Katz, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich were reportedly involved in Sunday’s meeting.

The meeting came off the back of an assessment held earlier Sunday between Katz and defense officials on the subject of the captives, announced by the defense minister’s office, and a separate joint meeting between Bar, Halevi, Barnea and Alon, announced by the Shin Bet, which said it focused on “advancing the efforts to return the hostages.”

Israeli Channel 12 reported that the security chiefs gave Katz a very grim assessment of the condition of the captives who have been held by in Gaza for more than 400 days.