From the Liveblog of
Monday, February 17, 2025
Gantz: Israel has reached last opportunity to free hostages from Gaza
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Israel must bring as many hostages home as possible, National Unity chairman Benny Gantz tells reporters, arguing that Israel has reached “the last opportunity” to bring the hostages home from Gaza.
“I ask you to be quiet for a minute. Think that this minute turns into an hour, and then into a day, and now try to think about 500 days, and in 500 days we have lost over 30 living hostages,” Gantz says during a faction meeting at the Knesset.
“Their fate will be decided, life or death, in decisions that will be made in the coming weeks. We cannot wait for the thousandth day. We need to harness all the levers of pressure, all the means, and also be prepared for painful concessions and bring them home – down to the last hostage.”
After the first months of the war, Israel failed “take advantage of the opportunities created by the military pressure to replace the Hamas regime and return our kidnapped people as we demanded,” he continues.
“Today it is clear – when we said over a year ago that it was possible to pause the fighting in order to return the kidnapped and then eliminate the Hamas regime – we were right.”
Turning to Lebanon, Gantz says that Beirut is “is not living up to the agreement and Hezbollah is arming itself and returning to operate in the border area.”
Therefore, Israel “cannot withdraw its forces from Lebanon” because to do so would be to leave the residents of the north without protection.
