Senior security official to media: Netanyahu working to prevent deal’s second phase

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is working to prevent the implementation of the hostage deal’s second phase, a senior Israeli security official familiar with the negotiations tells the Ynet news site.

“Every time you think it’s impossible to stoop any lower… it turns out that it is possible, and that there is still much lower that these people are willing to stoop to achieve political goals at the expense of hostages’ lives,” the anonymous official tells the news site, fuming over a statement issued by Netanyahu’s spokesperson last week in which the latter insisted that Israel is not currently holding negotiations regarding the second phase of the hostage deal.

The senior Israeli security official maintains that this amounts to a violation of the hostage deal, which stipulated that the parties begin holding negotiations regarding phase two of the deal no later than the 16th day of the first phase, which was on February 3 — nearly two weeks ago.

The official claims that even if Israel changed its approached and immediately engaged intensely in negotiations regarding the second phase of the deal, there is not enough time left to finish those talks by the end of the first phase on March 2.

The terms of the agreement do, however, allow for the first phase to continue indefinitely so long as the sides remain at the negotiation table in good faith.

“Netanyahu and his followers are trapped. They don’t care what’s happening in the outside world, outside the world of politics and outside of Israel. Therefore, Netanyahu is careful to immediately deny that such negotiations are even taking place. But he doesn’t blame Hamas because if he does, that would suggest that Israel is interested in holding negotiations regarding phase two in the first place,” the senior Israeli security official says.