Report: Nov. truce collapsed because Hamas falsely claimed women set for release were dead
Revelation comes in Channel 12 report that claims Netanyahu keeps ‘torpedoing’ 2nd hostage deal for political reasons; PM’s office says ‘false claims… echo Hamas propaganda’
Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter
Israeli television on Wednesday reported that November’s hostage-truce deal collapsed after a week because Hamas — instead of the 10 living hostages it was supposed to release on the eighth day of the deal — offered to return seven bodies and three living captives, who were two men and one woman. In fact, the report quoted a senior Israeli security source saying, Israel knew that the women among the seven purportedly dead hostages were alive and assessed that Hamas would immediately kill them if Israel accepted the changed terms.
The report was included in a lengthy story on Channel 12 that alleged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has consistently acted since December to “torpedo” a further possible hostage deal with Hamas for political reasons — a claim that was immediately and forcefully denied by the premier’s office.
In its report, Channel 12 news blamed Hamas, not Netanyahu, for the collapse of the seven-day ceasefire deal that enabled the release of 81 Israeli hostages and 24 foreign nationals in late November.
It specified that among the seven hostages who Hamas claimed were dead was Noa Argamani, who was rescued by the IDF along with three other living hostages in June. And it quoted the senior security official stressing that if Israel had accepted Hamas’s changed offer, the terror group would have simply shot the living female hostages it was claiming were dead.
“In the hours before [that day’s scheduled set of releases], Hamas announced via the mediators that the women who were supposed to be freed were dead,” Channel 12 quoted the senior Israeli security source saying.
“But we knew for certain that they were alive. Hamas said that Noa Argamani was dead, but not only her, and that others could not be located. And that was despite the fact that we had agreed in advance on the whole list of names [of living hostages to be freed].”
Added the security source, “As far as we were concerned there was no dilemma” regarding how to proceed. “If we played their game, we made clear to the political echelon, Hamas would murder the women. A minute later, they’d shoot them in the head. If we’d allowed them to play us, we’d never have seen those women again.”
The TV report also said that Hamas insisted on listing all the younger women it was holding hostage, including Mia Shem, Romi Gonen, and Carmel Gat, as soldiers. Shem was released on November 30, the day before the truce collapsed. Gonen is still held hostage. Gat was one of six hostages murdered by their Hamas captors last month.
Missed opportunities
A senior cabinet minister told the network that “coalition threats” at the time from far-right ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich dominated cabinet discussions about finding a way to continue the release of hostages despite Hamas’s games.
“That was the biggest missed opportunity. It would have been right to see the process through to the end, and move to the next category [of hostages]. It was possible to bring back the elderly men who died later in captivity, it was possible to bring Yarden Bibas home on humanitarian grounds,” the unnamed minister was quoted as saying.
In an interview last month, MK Gadi Eisenkot (National Unity), a former IDF chief who was an observer in the war cabinet at the time, said Israel could have gained the release of some elderly men if the government hadn’t resumed fighting in response to Hamas’s breaches of the deal, but “then Ben Gvir put out a statement that he would topple the government” if the truce continued.
The “threats from extremists in the government,” said Eisenkot, are a “cloud that hangs over all decision-making.”
Israel was right to insist on releasing women, he said, “but I didn’t think it was right to insist toward the end… I was in favor of actualizing the agreement in any way, even if we moved on to the category of elderly men and then returned to women,” he said, adding that he was alone in the war cabinet in this opinion.
Wednesday night’s TV report laid out Netanyahu’s decision to turn down an Egyptian proposal on December 24 and prevent Defense Minister Yoav Gallant from holding a discussion with Mossad chief David Barnea the next day.
There was also the potential for a breakthrough in January with a summit in Paris, said the report, but after Ben Gvir threatened to bring down the government, Netanyahu stressed five times over the next four days that there were obstacles in the talks.
Netanyahu continued along that line in March, refusing to expand the negotiators’ mandate. The report cited a former associate of Netanyahu, who argued that when the premier wants a deal he doesn’t speak publicly about his red lines, as he has done repeatedly since US President Joe Biden presented Israel’s proposal on May 31. Channel 12 also said the top security officials were surprised by Netanyahu’s announcement in June laying out his red lines, including continued IDF deployment in the Philadelphi Corridor along the Egypt-Gaza border.
Netanyahu’s office later issued a statement denouncing the TV report, saying the “false claims” in the media “echo the propaganda of the terrorist organization Hamas.”
The Prime Minister’s Office argued that Netanyahu accepted all of the US proposals, which “completely refutes the claim that he sabotaged any deal for political reasons.”
It noted that Netanyahu sent a proposal on April 27 that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called “very generous”; that he agreed to US President Joe Biden’s proposal on May 31; and that, on August 16, he accepted the US “final bridging proposal,” all of which were turned down by Hamas.
Netanyahu’s office also pointed out that US officials have said repeatedly that there is no deal because of Hamas — though they have also put some of the blame on Israel on occasion.
“Those who want to help in the effort to free our hostages should put pressure on the murderer [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar and not on the prime minister of Israel,” Netanyahu’s office said.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid said in response to the report, ” We have no time for politicians with no soul.” The hostages “are dying in Gaza and will return in coffins, and you won’t be able to say, ‘We didn’t know’.”
The Hostages Families Forum denounced Netanyahu, saying in a statement: “The actions to sabotage a deal highlighted in the report leave no room for doubt that Prime Minister Netanyahu is knowingly, deliberately and protractedly abandoning the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.” It says a state commission of inquiry will have to examine not only the October 7 failures, but also the torpedoing of a deal “that led to the murder or killing of living hostages in captivity and the ongoing abandonment of the 101 hostages still held.”
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.
Along with the 105 civilians freed during a weeklong truce in late November, Hamas released four hostages before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 37 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
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.
