Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hosted an emergency meeting Sunday evening on efforts to free hostages held in Gaza with a select group of ministers and the top security brass, who had reportedly planned to tell the forum that agreeing to an end to the war with Hamas was the only way to reach a deal to free the captives.
Meeting at the Kirya Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv, the head of the Shin Bet security agency, Ronen Bar, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, Mossad Director David Barnea, and the IDF’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 terror 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. The terror group has rejected short-term arrangements for the release of hostages in recent weeks.
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 hostages, 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.”
Defense Minister Israel Katz meets with security chiefs to discuss the hostages held in Gaza on November 17, 2023. (Ariel Hermoni/ Defense Ministry)
Channel 12 news reported that the security chiefs gave Katz a very grim assessment of the condition of the hostages who have been held by terrorists in Gaza for more than 400 days.
Last week, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum health team assessed that some of the remaining hostages have lost around half of their body weight due to the lack of food in captivity, which will reduce the chances of their survival in the upcoming winter.
Negotiations to free the hostages and reach a Gaza ceasefire have been at a virtual standstill for several months, with no apparent horizon for a meaningful resumption of talks.
Polling has found a large majority of Israelis support a hostage deal with Hamas that would end the war in Gaza, and critics of Netanyahu have accused the prime minister of keeping the war going to ensure the survival of his right-wing coalition — which includes far-right elements who want the fighting to continue and for settlements to be established in northern Gaza — and not due to security concerns, preventing an agreement.
Netanyahu was recorded late last month telling Likud lawmakers that Israel could not accept Hamas’s demand to end the war in exchange for the hostages, ostensibly over concerns that a deal would allow Hamas to remain in Gaza in some form.
It is believed that 97 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 37 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.
