Hostage negotiating team said displeased by conduct of new leader tapped by Netanyahu
Source involved says Dermer — who took the lead after PM’s sidelining of Mossad and Shin Bet chiefs — hasn’t maintained pace of professionals and his effort with Witkoff has failed
Members of Israel’s negotiating team are reportedly displeased with the conduct of their new leader, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tapped Dermer — one of his closest confidants — to head the team last month after the premier sidelined Mossad chief David Barnea and Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar.
Dermer is seen as more aligned with Netanyahu’s approach in the talks, which has been less compromising than that of the security chiefs.
The latter group has argued that Israel can afford to make concessions to Hamas in order to secure the release of the hostages who are living in dangerously unsafe conditions. Netanyahu and Dermer have taken a harder line — which US special envoy to the Mideast Steve Witkoff appeared to characterize on Friday as one that prioritizes exerting military pressure on Hamas.
It is why Netanyahu and Dermer have abandoned the phased ceasefire framework that Israel signed onto in January, which was supposed to see phase two commence at the beginning of March. That phase envisioned the release of the remaining living hostages in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a permanent end to the war.
Netanyahu has insisted that he will not end the war before Hamas’s governing and military capabilities have been dismantled.
Instead, he and Dermer have pushed for a temporary extension of phase one, under which Hamas would release more hostages.
Accepting the Israeli aversion to phase two, Witkoff last week proposed an extension of the ceasefire through the end of next month’s Passover holiday. During that time, five living hostages would be released in exchange for a large number of Palestinian security prisoners.
Hamas rejected the offer, leading Israel to resume fighting on March 18 for the first time in roughly two months.
An Israeli member of the negotiating team told Channel 12 Saturday that “the Dermer-Witkoff axis has failed.”
“We need professionals who act swiftly and respond quickly to developments, without wasting time. An understanding of [US President Donald] Trump alone is not enough,” the source said.
The source told Channel 12 that the military pressure over the past year had led Hamas to agree to a hostage deal in January but that Israel’s approach since then has led to the erosion of those military achievements.
The source also criticized Dermer for not maintaining the speed at which the previous Israeli negotiating chiefs worked and instead flying to Washington next week with National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi to discuss other issues.
“If there is no agreement very soon, we will slide into a full return to war. Instead of dedicating time to intensive negotiations and reaching agreements, [Israel] is stringing the talks along aimlessly,” the source said.
Similar criticism was voiced on Saturday by former war cabinet observer Gadi Eisenkot, who told Channel 12 in an interview: “[Dermer] isn’t functioning. He needs to be replaced. We need someone that knows how to deal with this 24/7, invest energy and not hold a discussion once every two weeks.”
Top ministers and security chiefs were supposed to meet on Thursday to discuss the hostage talks but the meeting was postponed in order for Netanyahu to advance his decision to fire Shin Bet chief Bar through the cabinet.
The meeting on the hostage talks was postponed to Saturday night, but a senior Arab diplomat from one of the mediating countries told The Times of Israel on Friday that there was little room for progress so long as Israel continues with its renewed military operations in Gaza.
Notably, Bar was invited to the Saturday meeting, despite the government’s effort to fire him. His dismissal is slated to take effect by April 10, but the High Court of Justice issued an injunction Friday freezing the move until it finishes adjudicating petitions against it.
For his part, Witkoff argued on Friday that Hamas has returned to the negotiation table since Israel’s military campaign.
Last week, the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported that Dermer and Netanyahu worked to stop direct negotiations between the US and Hamas aimed at releasing Idan Alexander, the last remaining hostage with US citizenship believed to still be alive.
The report also said that Dermer unsuccessfully tried to stop hostage families from meeting Trump earlier this month. Dermer denied both accusations.
Barnea and Bar negotiated the most recent deal, which saw 25 living and eight dead hostages — women, children, civilian men over 50, and those deemed “humanitarian cases” — released in exchange for some 1,900 Palestinian prisoners, including over 270 serving life sentences in connection with the murders of dozens of Israelis.
Dermer has since been unsuccessful in securing the release of more hostages. The stalled talks have caused public demonstrations for a hostage deal to grow. The protests were further ignited in the past week by the government’s moves to fire Bar and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara.
Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are holding 59 hostages, including 58 of the 251 abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023. They include the bodies of at least 35 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Before the most recent ceasefire, the terror group freed 105 civilians in a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that in the early weeks of the war.
In exchange, Israel has freed some 2,000 jailed Palestinian terrorists, security prisoners, and Gazan terror suspects detained during the war.
Eight hostages have been rescued from captivity by troops alive, and the bodies of 41 have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors and the body of a soldier who was killed in 2014.
The body of another soldier killed in 2014 is still being held by Hamas and is counted among the 59 hostages.
The Times of Israel Community.