Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Sunday that Israel must try every possible avenue to bring home the hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, including a proposal that is in the midst of negotiations.
“This commitment, to leave no one behind, is true for the war we are fighting today and will be true for all of Israel’s wars,” Gallant said at a memorial ceremony for Israel’s fallen soldiers whose final resting place is unknown.
An Israeli delegation had been said to be ready to travel to Doha for further talks on the widely reported proposal on Saturday, but the two forums needed to approve Israel’s position in the negotiations — the three-member war cabinet and the broader security cabinet — had yet to convene to discuss the matter.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied claims he was delaying in the calling the meetings due to alleged opposition to the deal by far-right elements in the government. The war and security cabinets are slated to convene Sunday evening.
“As we operated throughout the war, the defense establishment under my leadership… are obligated to exhaust every possibility and are ready to take advantage of every opportunity, including the current one, to return the hostages to their families,” Gallant said.
“Along with 112 living hostages who were returned in agreements and operational activities, IDF troops and Shin Bet personnel also returned 11 slain [hostages] to be buried in Israel,” he said.
Also addressing the ceremony on Sunday, President Isaac Herzog said: “The duty to return all hostages, the duty to fight for their lives, the duty to bring the bodies held in Gaza… to burial in Israel, the duty to remove doubts and to fight for any missing information for the families — all these must remain above all controversy.”
Gallant convened a “special meeting” on the efforts to return the hostages held in the Gaza Strip on Saturday evening, his office said.
Attending the meeting were senior officials in the IDF, Mossad, Shin Bet, Defense Ministry and representatives to the negotiations.
Hebrew media reports late Saturday indicated that Mossad chief David Barnea would only head to Qatar on Monday for talks with Qatar’s prime minister and Egyptian officials, with the war cabinet scheduled to meet on Sunday night.
The outcome of that meeting would then need to be reviewed by the security cabinet before the delegation could set off.
A source told Reuters that US officials would also be at the Qatar talks.
Over the weekend, Hebrew media reports said the process of releasing the delegation was held up because the war cabinet wrapped up a Friday meeting early in order to finish before Shabbat started at sunset.
Also, the Kan public broadcaster reported that MK Aryeh Deri, leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, opposed the team traveling on Shabbat, asserting that the talks were not a matter of immediate life and death. Deri denied the report, which had prompted criticism from opposition lawmakers.
Netanyahu denied reports that he sought to push off deciding on the negotiating team’s mandate for the Doha talks, and had refused to hold a meeting on Saturday on the matter, thereby apparently delaying the departure of the team.
At the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday morning, Netanyahu pushed back against mounting international pressure for a ceasefire, vowing to see the war through until Hamas is destroyed, including an operation in the southern city of Rafah. The expected Rafah operation has strained ties with the US amid concerns over the safety of noncombatants who could be caught in the crossfire.
The government is also being pushed at home by families of hostages and their supporters who urge reaching a deal to release the hostages as soon as possible, fearing that dragging out their captivity, already in its sixth month, presents a mounting daily danger to their lives.
A source told Reuters that the Qatar discussions will cover the remaining gaps between Israel and Hamas, including the number of Palestinian prisoners who could potentially be released in exchange for the remaining Israeli hostages, as well as humanitarian aid to Gaza.
The talks would mark the first time both Israeli officials and Hamas leaders joined the indirect negotiations since the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan earlier this week. Mediators had hoped to secure a six-week truce before then, but Hamas refused any deal that wouldn’t lead to a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, a demand Israel flatly rejects.
The war began on October 7 with Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel in which terrorists rampaged through the south, murdering some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 253.
It is believed that 130 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza — not all of them alive — after 105 civilians were released from Hamas captivity during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released prior to that. Three hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 11 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military.
The IDF has confirmed the deaths of 32 of those still held by Hamas, citing new intelligence and findings obtained by troops operating in Gaza. One other person has been listed as missing since October 7, and their fate is still unknown.
Hamas has also been holding the bodies of fallen IDF soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin since 2014, as well as two Israeli civilians, Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, who are both thought to be alive after entering the Strip of their own accord in 2014 and 2015 respectively.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza claims that more than 31,500 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in the ongoing war. The number cannot be independently verified and is believed to include both Hamas gunmen and civilians, some of whom were killed as a consequence of the terror group’s own rocket misfires. The IDF says it has killed over 13,000 terror operatives in Gaza, in addition to some 1,000 who were killed inside Israel on and immediately following October 7.