Security chiefs said to urge government not to jeopardize phase one hostage releases

Israeli security chiefs have told the political echelon that Israel needs to try to see phase one of the Gaza deal through to its end, and get out as many hostages as possible, Channel 12 reports.

It says that at today’s security cabinet meeting, far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich urged the full endorsement of President Trump’s ultimatum that all the hostages be released by Hamas by Saturday noon.

As of this writing, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not explicitly demanded that all hostages be freed by that deadline, although an unnamed political source has done so.

“We need to show restraint right now, to completely finish phase one,” the TV report quotes an unnamed security source saying. “We must not cut off the dynamic of the hostage releases. The framework is working. The mediators are guaranteeing the agreement and there’s no real reason to stop the sequence right now.”

Seventeen more hostages are supposed to be freed in the current phase one of the deal, nine of whom are believed to be alive.

The TV report also quotes an unnamed military source, adding: “We have very significant offensive tools, and are giving [the political leadership] all the options. One has to understand how things develop and take President Trump’s ultimatum and leverage it effectively to secure the release of as many hostages as possible.

“If there is no progress that gets the deal back on track, decisions must be made,” this source adds. “Hamas is being faced with the massive scale of destruction [in Gaza], is counting the dead and publishing the list of its dead commanders.”

“As regards the big young men in the crisply ironed uniforms at the hostage release ceremonies,” the military source sneers, “it’s likely that these are operatives who were too scared to get entangled with IDF troops, and hid out in humanitarian zones until the ceasefire started. And we will know how to go back and hit them.”