In leaked conversation, ‘desperate’ IDF negotiator says there’ll be no hostage deal with the current government – report

Maj. Gen. (Res.) Nitzan Alon, who is a member of Israel’s negotiating team in the hostage deal talks, told IDF officials who oversee issues relating to the hostages and their families that the current Israeli government will not allow for any deal to come to fruition, Channel 12 reports.

The report quotes Alon as saying that negotiators “are desperate,” as the coalition in its current constellation will not allow for a hostage deal, due to Hamas’s demand for a complete ceasefire: “We are desperate. With this government formation, there will be no deal.”

“The deal I’m pushing for would provide for the return of all the hostages, while Hamas insists that it must provide for an end to the war,” Alon is further quoted as having said.”

“I told the prime minister that it will be possible to return to fighting at any given moment,” Alon is said to have told the military officials, apparently indicating that he believes Israel can afford to agree to the Hamas demand to “end the war” in return for the release of all the hostages, because Hamas is bound to take subsequent violent action against Israel and thus justify a resumption of the war.

Following the report, the IDF says Alon is working in coordination with the government to facilitate the return of the hostages, and asserts that “the things that were said were taken out of context.”