Gallant: Return of northern residents must be added to war aims

Gallant said to warn ministers multifront war dangerously close without hostage deal

Defense minister gives cabinet a document presenting security establishment’s stance in favor of ceasefire agreement, as negotiators make progress on less thorny issues

Relatives of Israelis held hostage by Hamas terrorists in Gaza and supporters take part in a rally for the release of Israelis held kidnapped by Hamas terrorists in Gaza, near the Israeli border with the Gaza Strip, on August 28, 2024. (Flash90)
Relatives of Israelis held hostage by Hamas terrorists in Gaza and supporters take part in a rally for the release of Israelis held kidnapped by Hamas terrorists in Gaza, near the Israeli border with the Gaza Strip, on August 28, 2024. (Flash90)

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Thursday reportedly presented the security cabinet with a document he drew up in recent days urging a hostage-ceasefire deal and detailing the potentially dire consequences for Israel of a failure to finalize such an agreement.

The document represents the view of the Israeli security establishment, Channel 12 reported Thursday, adding that Gallant had shared it with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and several other top officials in the days leading up to the security cabinet meeting.

The document reportedly presents Israel as standing at a “strategic crossroads.”

If Israel accepts and can finalize a ceasefire-hostage deal, this would not only achieve the return of the hostages but also enable a diplomatic arrangement to calm hostilities with Hezbollah across the northern border and prevent regional war, the document maintains. It could also increase the likelihood that Iran would shelve plans to avenge the killing of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last month.

By contrast, Gallant’s document reportedly warns that if Israel does not move to strike a deal, it would be leaving the hostages in captivity and would face the danger of an “imminent deterioration into a multi-front war.”

Channel 12 noted that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is intent on fomenting a multifront war against Israel and might therefore be inclined to reject a hostage deal for the very reasons that Gallant is pressing Netanyahu and Israel to accept it.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convenes a security cabinet meeting on July 28, 2024. (Haim Zach/GPO)

Meanwhile, on Thursday, a working-level Israeli negotiating team was in Qatar, reportedly making progress on various clauses of the agreement.

However, those talks are not focusing on Netanyahu’s demands — rejected by Hamas — for an ongoing Israeli presence in the Philadelphi Corridor on the Gaza-Egypt border, to prevent Hamas from rearming across the border, and for a mechanism to prevent armed Hamas gunmen from returning to northern Gaza across the Netzarim Corridor that bisects the Strip.

Israel’s security chiefs are widely reported to have assured Netanyahu that Israel can afford to withdraw troops from both those corridors in the context of a deal, while Netanyahu has adamantly rejected this assessment.

Citing an unnamed political source, Channel 12 said the US is pushing the sides to wrap up talks on all issues other than Philadelphi and Netzarim by the end of this week.

A handout picture released by the official Qatari news agency (QNA) shows Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani (2nd-R) meeting with US National Security Council Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa Brett McGurk (2nd-L) in Doha on November 19, 2023. (Qatar News Agency / AFP)

Then, Washington will present Israel and Hamas with a deal as things stand and push the sides to resolve the Philadelphi and Netzarim disagreements in the days that follow. If the sides fail to do so, the US will present its own compromise on the two disputed issues and demand the sides accept it. If one or other does not, the Biden administration will publicly assign blame, the Thursday Channel 12 report said.

Hours earlier, Gallant held a meeting with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and other defense officials to discuss “expanding the goals of the war” in light of the fighting in northern Israel.

“The task on the northern front is still ahead of us, including the safe return of the residents who evacuated. To meet this goal we must expand the goals of the war. I will bring the issue before the prime minister and the cabinet,” Gallant said in remarks provided by his office.

Currently, Israel’s official war aims are dismantling Hamas in Gaza and returning the hostages abducted by the terror group on October 7.

However, the IDF’s efforts to return the estimated 60,000 displaced Israelis from northern Israel back to their homes amid Hezbollah’s daily attacks have also been considered a war goal among many officials, albeit unofficially.

‘Down to the nitty-gritty’

While short of a full ceasefire sought by much of the international community, a partial truce would still provide relief to some Gazans who have endured almost a year of fighting in the Palestinian territory, since Israel launched its war to topple Hamas following the October 7 massacres.

Some 1,200 people were killed in the unprecedented attack on Israel and 251 were kidnapped into Gaza. Israel says over 100 hostages remain in Gaza, many of them no longer alive.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters earlier Thursday that the negotiations for a ceasefire and the release of hostages had made progress.

The negotiators are bearing down on the details, meaning that we have advanced the discussions to a point where it’s in the nitty-gritty, and that is a positive sign of progress,” he said from Beijing.

Smoke billows during airstrikes on areas southeast of central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah, on August 24, 2024. (Bashar Taleb/AFP)

Officials from the United States, Egypt, Qatar and Israel have held several days of talks trying to hammer out an updated proposal that could be submitted to Hamas. But there has been no sign of a breakthrough, and Israel and Hamas remain far apart on key issues.

US officials have said they are closing in on a deal, while Hamas has accused the US of adopting unacceptable demands by Israel and trying to force them on the terror group. Officials in Egypt, one of the key mediators, have also expressed skepticism.

“At the end of the day, nothing is done until it’s done. And so we’re just going to keep working at this until we finally get the ceasefire and hostage deal across the line,” Sullivan said.

AP contributed to this report.

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