Mossad chief warns Gaza cleanup risks destroying hostages’ bodies – report

Barnea said to express concern in meeting with hostages’ families; Hamas reportedly pledges that prominent terrorists Marwan Barghouti, Ahmed Saadat will be freed later under deal

Displaced Palestinians make their way back to their homes in the northern Gaza Strip via Salah a-Din Road on January 28, 2025. (Ali Hassan/Flash90)
Displaced Palestinians make their way back to their homes in the northern Gaza Strip via Salah a-Din Road on January 28, 2025. (Ali Hassan/Flash90)

Mossad chief David Barnea reportedly told families of Israeli hostages on Monday evening that the use of bulldozers to clear wreckage in the Gaza Strip could make it impossible to recover some slain captives’ bodies.

Speaking to the families, Barnea said, “It’s awful. It could cause more cases like Ron Arad,” referring to an Israeli Air Force officer who was captured in Lebanon in 1986 and, in the absence of intelligence about his condition or location, was declared dead in 2008.

“We have a responsibility to bring everyone home,” he added, according to a Channel 12 report Tuesday.

During the meeting, Barnea also reportedly told the families that the list of 33 hostages to be freed in the deal’s first stage was prepared after the end of the hostage-ceasefire deal in November 2023 — despite the fact that circumstances have certainly changed for many of the captives since then.

Those included fell into the “humanitarian” categories of women, children, female soldiers, the elderly, and the sick, the latter of whom was determined by a medical panel.

Some of the families also expressed their concern during the meeting that Israel might return to fighting after the first stage of the deal, rather than see the three-phase agreement through to the end, which would include a withdrawal from the Strip and permanent ceasefire alongside the release of the remaining hostages and many more Palestinian terror inmates.

Mossad chief David Barnea attends a state ceremony marking the anniversary of the Hamas October 7 attack, at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem on October 27, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/FLASH90)

Many families, in the lead-up to the deal, demanded that an agreement see the release of all the hostages at once, fearing that those set to be released in latter stages would be left behind in captivity.

“This isn’t a complete deal, but it’s the best deal that we were able to get,” Barnea told the families. Asked whether he personally assessed that the three-phase deal would be implemented in its entirety, he responded: “There are many difficult issues that have to be discussed [in negotiations].”

The intelligence chief added, “It will be difficult and challenging, but I’ve seen the return of all the hostages as the highest goal, and there are is a real willingness, and good intentions,” to which one hostage’s father responded, “I can’t rely on good intentions.”

Palestinian women take a picture in front of a big poster of Marwan Barghouti, the highest-profile Palestinian prisoner held by Israel, during a rally in solidarity with Gaza and prisoners held by Israel, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, August 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

Hamas promised Barghouti, Saadat will be released

Highlighting fears regarding subsequent phases of the deal, the Kan public broadcaster reported Tuesday, citing an unnamed Palestinian source involved in the negotiations, that Hamas has promised the families of prominent terror convicts Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Saadat that they will be released from Israeli prison in the second stage of the ceasefire.

Both prisoners are considered icons by many Palestinians.

Barghouti, a 64-year-old Fatah leader widely considered a potential candidate to lead the Palestinian Authority, is serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison for his part in planning three terror attacks that killed five Israelis during the 2000-2005 Second Intifada.

Saadat, 72, the leader of the Marxist-Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), was sentenced in 2008 to 30 years behind bars for masterminding the 2001 assassination of far-right Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Ze’evi.

PFLP Secretary-General Ahmad Saadat at the Jerusalem’s Magistrate Court in September 2012. (Yoav Ari Dudkevitch/Flash90)

Israel has previously said Barghouti won’t be freed in a deal.

The Palestinian source was cited as saying Hamas is preparing a strategic plan to take over the West Bank-based PA after the latter’s octogenarian leader Mahmoud Abbas is no longer in office.

The popular Barghouti is seen as a leading candidate to win Palestinian national elections, should they be held, and if Hamas secures his release, he will owe the terror group his freedom, the report noted.

So far, seven hostages have been freed from Gaza as part of the current hostage-ceasefire deal, which mandates the release of 33 so-called “humanitarian hostages” during its first 42-day phase, with fighting stopped in the Strip.

The 33 hostages set to be returned in phase one of the Gaza ceasefire deal. Row 1 (L-R): Romi Gonen, Emily Damari, Arbel Yehoud, Doron Steinbrecher, Ariel Bibas, Kfir Bibas, Shiri Bibas; Row 2: Liri Albag, Karina Ariev, Agam Berger, Danielle Gilboa, Naama Levy, Ohad Ben-Ami, Gadi Moshe Moses; Row 3: Keith Siegel, Ofer Calderon, Eli Sharabi, Itzik Elgarat, Shlomo Mantzur, Ohad Yahalomi, Oded Lifshitz; Row 4: Tsahi Idan, Hisham al-Sayed, Yarden Bibas, Sagui Dekel-Chen, Yair Horn, Omer Wenkert, Sasha Trufanov; Row 5: Eliya Cohen, Or Levy, Avera Mengistu, Tal Shoham, Omer Shem-Tov (all photos courtesy)

As those hostages — women, children, elderly people, and sick people — are gradually released, Israel is to release some 1,904 Palestinian security prisoners, including more than a hundred serving life sentences for terror attacks

The three-phase deal’s later phases are to see negotiations with the stated goal of reaching a “sustainable calm” in the enclave, alongside the release of the remaining hostages held in Gaza, the release of more Palestinian security prisoners, and an Israeli withdrawal from the Strip.

The war in Gaza began on October 7, 2023, when some 3,000 Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and taking 251 hostages, amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.

At least 34 of the 87 hostages still in captivity have been confirmed dead by the IDF, and the bodies of 40 others have been recovered throughout the course of the war.

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