Opposition National Unity MK Gadi Eisenkot on Thursday said Israel’s defense brass should resign “the moment there’s a break in the fighting,” while calling on the government not wait to approve a hostage-for-ceasefire deal until receiving satisfactory guarantees regarding the Gaza-Egypt border.
Eisenkot, himself a former IDF chief of staff, hailed Israel’s top security brass as “excellent people who are committed” to the country, “but they are responsible for the State of Israel’s greatest failure since the country was founded.”
“Therefore everyone, from the division commander to the prime minister, needs to finish their roles, take responsibility and resign,” he told Army Radio, calling on them to follow former military intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva in resigning.
Turning to the current round of hostage talks and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence that Israel control the so-called Philadelphi Corridor along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, Eisenkot said that while sealing that frontier “is a worthy and correct aim,” it was note not among the goals that the government approved for the war.
Eisenkot, who was an observer in the war cabinet until National Unity leader Benny Gantz pulled the party out of the government in June to protest Netanyahu’s management of the war, said returning the hostages seized during the Hamas-led October 7 attack that started the war in Gaza “is a national duty.”
“It would be a great mistake to delay the return of the hostages until we reach an arrangement with Gaza and Egypt on the Philadelphi Corridor,” he said.
“The hostages don’t have time, every day that passes there are fewer hostages to bring back,” he continued, noting the six captives whose remains were recovered from Gaza this week. Initial autopsy findings released Thursday found they all their bodies have signs of gunfire, likely indicating they were killed by their captors.
It is believed that 105 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Seven hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 30 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.