Top negotiator said to tell hostage families he’s not familiar with new plan to end war, free all captives

The Israeli military’s envoy to negotiations aimed at freeing hostages held in Gaza, Nitzan Alon, is said to have told family members of the captives that he and the rest of the negotiating team were unfamiliar with a reported new Israeli offer.

Israel has put a proposal on the table that would end fighting in the Gaza Strip and give the head of Hamas safe passage out of the enclave in exchange for the immediate release of all hostages held in Gaza, the demilitarization of the Strip and the establishment of an alternative governing power there, Kan news reported earlier.

An Israeli official confirmed the outlines of the report to The Times of Israel and said Gal Hirsch, the government point man on the hostages, had presented the plan to American officials, who were expected to pass it on to unspecified Arab officials.

Hirsch told families of hostages that the proposal had been presented last week in a meeting with US officials from the White House and State Department, Kan said.

However, Alon reportedly tells family members he is unaware of such a proposal.

“Gal Hirsch’s offer that was sent to the US is not known to the negotiating team,” Channel 12 quotes Alon as telling the families. “Hirsch was never a part of the negotiating team.”

Channel 12 says Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is also unaware of the new proposal and it had not been discussed by the government.

The channel quotes family members as decrying the new offer as government spin.

“It seems that it is spin from the government to show that they are supposedly on the way to a deal,” the family member says.