Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Thursday reportedly presented the security cabinet with a document he drew up in recent days urging a hostage-ceasefire deal and detailing the potentially dire consequences for Israel of a failure to finalize such an agreement.
The document represents the view of the Israeli security establishment, Channel 12 reported Thursday, adding that Gallant had shared it with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and several other top officials in the days leading up to the security cabinet meeting.
The document reportedly presents Israel as standing at a “strategic crossroads.”
If Israel accepts and is able to finalize a ceasefire-hostage deal, this would not only achieve the return of the hostages but also enable a diplomatic arrangement to calm hostilities with Hezbollah across the northern border and prevent regional war, the document maintains. It could also increase the likelihood that Iran would shelve plans to avenge the killing of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last month.
By contrast, Gallant’s document reportedly warns that if Israel does not move to strike a deal, it would be leaving the hostages in captivity and would face the danger of an “imminent deterioration into a multi-front war.”
Channel 12 noted that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is intent on fomenting a multi-front war against Israel and might therefore be inclined to reject a hostage deal for the very reasons that Gallant is pressing Netanyahu and Israel to accept it.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, a working-level Israeli negotiating team was in Qatar, reportedly making progress on various clauses of the agreement.
However, those talks are not focusing on Netanyahu’s demands — rejected by Hamas — for an ongoing Israeli presence at the Philadelphi Corridor on the Gaza-Egypt border, to prevent Hamas from rearming across the border, and for a mechanism to prevent armed Hamas gunmen from returning to northern Gaza across the Netzarim Corridor that bisects the Strip.
Israel’s security chiefs are widely reported to have assured Netanyahu that Israel can afford to withdraw troops from both those corridors in the context of a deal, while Netanyahu has adamantly rejected this assessment.
Citing an unnamed political source, Channel 12 said the US is pushing the sides to wrap up talks on all issues other than Philadelphi and Netzarim by the end of this week.
Then, Washington will present Israel and Hamas with a deal as things stand and push the sides to resolve the Philadelphi and Netzarim disagreements in the days that follow. If the sides fail to do so, the US will present its own compromise on the two disputed issues and demand the sides accept it. If one or other does not, the Biden administration will publicly assign blame, the Thursday Channel 12 report said.
Hours earlier, Gallant held a meeting with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and other defense officials to discuss “expanding the goals of the war” in light of the fighting in northern Israel.
“The task on the northern front is still ahead of us, including the safe return of the residents who evacuated. To meet this goal we must expand the goals of the war. I will bring the issue before the prime minister and the cabinet,” Gallant said in remarks provided by his office.
Currently, Israel’s official war aims are dismantling Hamas in Gaza and returning the hostages abducted by the terror group on October 7.
However, the IDF’s efforts to return the estimated 60,000 displaced Israelis from northern Israel back to their homes amid Hezbollah’s daily attacks have also been considered a war goal among many officials, albeit unofficially.