Senior official in Israeli truce negotiating team: Expanding Rafah op will put hostages at risk

Channel 12 quotes a senior member of Israel’s hostage negotiating team who says that a decision by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to further expand the IDF’s operations in the southern Gaza city of Rafah will put the lives of the hostages at risk.

Such warnings have been made by foreign officials, but this is the first time that they are being echoed — albeit anonymously — by a senior member of Israel’s own negotiating team, which is led by Mossad chief David Barnea, Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar and IDF general Nitzan Alon.

Netanyahu and other members of the Israeli government have insisted that military pressure, such as the operation in Rafah, is what will coax Hamas into agreeing to a hostage deal.

The senior Israeli hostage negotiator argues that further expanding the Rafah operation will lead Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar to double down in his current refusal to compromise, harming efforts to reach a deal in the near future.

The official says that the only strategy that will work at this point in convincing Sinwar to come down from his demands will be if Israel advances a viable alternative to Hamas’s rule in Gaza.

Netanyahu has argued that such conversations regarding the post-war management of Gaza before Hamas has been dismantled are futile because no one will agree to take up the reins so long as Hamas remains in the picture.