Gallant says government ‘didn’t do everything it could to bring back the hostages’
In first interview since being sacked, ex-defense minister insists deal could have been struck over the summer if not for Smotrich, Ben Gvir

In his first interview since being sacked in November, former defense minister Yoav Gallant accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet of delaying a ceasefire deal that would have led to the return of more living hostages.
He also sharply criticized the premier for rejecting a large-scale preemptive strike on Hezbollah during the war’s early stages, maintaining that such an attack could have stymied the escalation of violence on Israel’s northern border.
“I think that the Israeli government did not do everything it could have to return the hostages,” Gallant told the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper in the interview, to be published in full on Friday.
Gallant claimed the framework of the current ceasefire-hostage deal looks nearly identical to an earlier proposal, on the table in April and finalized over the summer. If it had been accepted then, he insisted, Israel could have brought back more living hostages while releasing fewer Palestinian security prisoners.
“In practice, we could have gotten the same deal with more hostages, and at a lower price, because 110 terrorists serving life sentences were not in discussions then,” Gallant said.
But Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and former national security minister Ben Gvir strongly opposed the deal and “dragged the cabinet in their direction,” he claimed.
Gallant’s support of a deal with Hamas that would bring about the release of the hostages became a constant point of contention between him and Netanyahu, who finally fired him — after a failed attempt the previous year — last November.
At the time, Gallant said he believed he had been fired due to three specific demands he insisted on: the need to draft Haredi men into the IDF, the imperative to bring back the hostages from Gaza, and the need for a state commission of inquiry in the October 7 onslaught and the ensuing war.
Regarding the question of Israeli leaders’ responsibility for the attack, Gallant said he had urged the establishment of a state commission of inquiry early on into the war.
Gallant also revealed details regarding the IDF high command’s proposal to launch a major preemptive strike against Hezbollah on October 11, in the wake of Hamas’s invasion and after the Lebanese terror group had started firing missiles at northern Israel. The plan would have killed or injured some 12,000-15,000 Hezbollah fighters by means of booby-trapped radios attached to their combat vests, he claimed.
“I think that the fact that we didn’t act on October 11 is the biggest security-related missed opportunity in the history of the State of Israel. Not just during this war,” he said.
Gallant blamed Netanyahu for thwarting the plan with the help of American pressure.
During one meeting in Tel Aviv’s Kirya military headquarters, Gallant recalled, the premier “pointed out the window more than once… and said: ‘Do you see all these buildings in Tel Aviv? They will be destroyed, nothing will remain, as a result of Hezbollah’s missile launch capability.'”
“I disagreed with that. I told him that was not the case. And I asked him to convene the cabinet as quickly as possible,” Gallant said.
Gallant also expressed frustration with the IDF’s top brass for failing to wake him up the night before October 7, when the military noticed some 1,000 Israeli SIM cards suddenly activated in the Gaza Strip.