Censor allows publication of report Israel held direct hostage talks with Hamas, with PM’s approval

The military censor on Thursday permitted the publication of a long-censored Israeli television report that then-Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar held direct negotiations over hostage releases with exiled Hamas leaders after the October 7, 2023, Hamas invasion that were ongoing in February 2025, when he was removed from his leading role in Israel’s negotiating team by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

At the time, an official Israeli negotiating team was publicly known to be holding indirect mediated talks with Hamas via the US, Egypt, and Qatar.

The direct contacts were held with the approval of Netanyahu, the war cabinet and security cabinet, according to Channel 12 news. Such a direct channel had proved more effective in the past than negotiations via mediators, Bar reportedly noted in closed-door conversations, which is why he was astounded when Netanyahu removed him from the negotiating team.

The TV network reported that it knew of these talks in April 2025, but was barred from publishing the news by the military censor. However, it said the censor contacted Channel 12 on Thursday, invited it to resubmit the story for approval, and then immediately granted permission to publish the report.

Bar resigned from the Shin Bet in June 2025; the cabinet had voted to fire him that March, but that decision was frozen by the High Court.

Channel 12 suggested the censor’s decision was linked to another report published Thursday on secret Hamas contacts, which Netanyahu allegedly held via his emissary Shlomi Fogel in 2014. The network said it did not know whether the military censor contacted the channel of its own volition, or whether it was told to do so, implying the move may have been a directive from the prime minister.

“Someone is trying to tell us here that if it was acceptable after October 7, after Hamas slaughtered us, raped our women and invaded our communities, to hold direct contacts with them, and Ronen Bar did so, then what was the problem with Shlomi Fogel, Netanyahu’s man, holding contacts [with Hamas] before October 7th? That’s the subconscious message.”

The difference, editorialized Channel 12, is that Bar was an authorized member of the security establishment, whereas Fogel was a private businessman.

Both Netanyahu and Fogel denied the earlier Walla news outlet report that they secretly negotiated with Hamas in 2014.

“A total lie. The prime minister refused to hold negotiations with Hamas, which were solely led by mediators,” Netanyahu’s office said in response to the report.

However, Channel 12 reported further details of the alleged interaction, which had provoked a political firestorm.

The report said Netanyahu was twice confronted about the secret channel by senior Israeli security officials, and twice claimed that he knew nothing about it.

The TV network said the Israeli security establishment found out in real time that Fogel, a business associate of the prime minister’s, was holding the talks with senior Hamas Gaza leader Ghazi Hamad, aimed at reaching terms for a ceasefire in that summer’s Operation Protective Edge, even as three generals and the head of the Shin Bet were in Cairo holding official discussions on a ceasefire on behalf of the prime minister.

According to the initial Walla report, the Israeli team in Cairo was unaware of Netanyahu’s backchannel talks, during which Fogel passed on messages formulated by the then-head of the National Security Council, Yossi Cohen.

Senior security officials went to ask Netanyahu about Fogel’s activities. He acknowledged that he knew Fogel but claimed he was unaware of any such talks and said he had not dispatched Fogel to meet with Hamas, Channel 12 said. Netanyahu encouraged the security officials to summon Fogel and tell him to stop.

Fogel was indeed summoned, according to Channel 12, and claimed that he was “doing this with authorization and permission.” The security officials retorted that they were telling him, with the prime minister’s knowledge, to stop.

But Fogel did not stop. Within days, intelligence was received that his discussions with Hamas were continuing. So the security officials went a second time to speak with Netanyahu, who again claimed he knew nothing about the Fogel talks, the report said.

Netanyahu then phoned Cohen, later the head of the Mossad, and told him to tell Fogel to stop, the report continued. Eyal Zamir, Netanyahu’s military secretary at the time and the current IDF chief of staff, was in the room, the report said.

Fogel continued, nonetheless, and was summoned again and told he was breaking the law. He then pulled out “dozens of pages” of documents, “with all the records of his meetings… all the messages he had been instructed to convey to Ghazi Hamad,” the TV report said.

The security officials realized that this was Netanyahu’s modus operandi, the report said. It described the episode as echoing Netanyahu’s appointment of billionaire philanthropist and World Jewish Congress leader Ronald Lauder as his secret personal emissary to negotiate with Syrian president Hafez al-Assad regarding the Golan Heights, in 1998, during his first term as prime minister.