Top negotiator says proposal to end war, free all hostages ‘unknown’ to him – report
IDF envoy to talks notes government point-man Gal Hirsch, who told hostages’ families of plan, is not in negotiating team; Hostage Families Forum slams ‘cheap, cynical manipulation’
The military’s envoy to hostage deal talks poured cold water Thursday evening on a reported new Israeli offer, saying the outline — which a Hamas official publicly rejected as soon as it was reported — was in fact unknown to the Israeli negotiating team.
According to the reported proposal, Hamas would release all of its hostages at once, rather than in drawn-out phases, and would allow for a new government to take over the Gaza Strip; in exchange, Israel would end the war in Gaza and ensure safe passage out of the strip for Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, alongside a release of Palestinian security prisoners.
Gal Hirsch, the government point man on the hostage issue, reportedly told captives’ families that the proposal had been presented last week in a meeting with US officials from the White House and State Department.
But Nitzan Alon, the Israeli military’s envoy to the negotiations, told family members of the captives on Thursday that the reported proposal was unknown to the actual negotiating team, Channel 12 reported.
“The proposal that Gal Hirsch presented to the United States is unknown to the negotiating team, Hirsch was never a part of the negotiating team,” the military envoy reportedly told the hostages’ family members.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant echoed Alon’s statement, saying he too was unaware of the proposal and that it had not been discussed by the government, the network reported.
And Barak Ravid, the Axios reporter and Walla correspondent, said on X that a US source told him members of the American negotiating team confirmed they had not met with Hirsch and had never received such a proposal.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, responding to the reports, accused the government of lying about a new proposal in order to sabotage actual, ongoing negotiations.
“Gal Hirsch again chose to carry out a cheap, cynical manipulation on the backs of the hostages, their families and the nation of Israel. This was a fraud, whose purpose was to eliminate the new American initiative to free the hostages and stop the war in Gaza,” the group said in a statement.
“At a time when 101 hostages are abandoned by Netanyahu’s government in Hamas’s tunnels of death, Hirsch is working behind the backs of the negotiating team and torpedoing an international initiative to bring the hostages home,” it continued.
“This exercise in fraud joins a long list of deals torpedoed by Netanyahu and his partners, and proves that Netanyahu has decided to abandon the hostages,” the statement said.
The group concluded by noting that Israel will soon mark one year since the October 7 attack, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostages, starting the ongoing war.
The hostage families accused the government of “a moral and ethical failure like nothing seen since the founding of the state.”
Hours earlier, the forum had given the reported proposal its full-throated endorsement, saying in a statement, “A one-shot deal that includes all 101 hostages is the wish of all Israeli citizens and the families of the hostages.
“The proposal strengthens security in Israel and makes it possible to reach a comprehensive regional settlement,” the forum said.
In its statement, the group also asserted that the proposal had been “presented in Washington in front of leaders from Arab countries and received a positive response,” reflecting what they were reportedly told by Hirsch in their meeting.
For its part, the Prime Minister’s Office said that the reported proposal was “nothing new.”
“The prime minister spoke about this in [his speech to] Congress. He said that the war could end now if Sinwar is exiled, we get the hostages, Hamas is not in power, and there is demilitarization and deradicalization. This means victory, and the end of the war,” the PMO said.
Senior Biden administration officials have recently told the families of American hostages that the existing framework for the deal — which the US presented publicly in June and which Israel had said it agreed to — is no longer working, it was reported earlier this week. Israel’s negotiating team was also working on alternative frameworks, the same report stated.
It is believed that 97 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 33 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 40,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 17,000 combatants in battle and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 348.
Lazar Berman contributed to this report.
