In the confused hours immediately after the October 7, 2023, Hamas assault on southern Israel, several military and political leaders sought to exclude the issue of returning the hostages from the official goals of the war, according to minutes from the first cabinet meetings.
Channel 12 on Tuesday published quotes from the closed-door meetings as part of a report on the second anniversary of the assault.
The first cabinet meeting of the war took place at 1 p.m., six and a half hours after Hamas began its attack in which terrorists murdered some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostages.
Then-IDF chief of staff Herzi Halevi told those present that they must not “attach the hostages and missing to the (war’s) objectives. That needs to be our lesson from the Second Lebanon War,” according to the Channel 12 report.
Halevi was referring to Israel’s second war with Hezbollah in 2006, which broke out after the Lebanese terrorist organization abducted soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser. One of the objectives of that war was to retrieve the hostages, but Israel failed to do so, and their bodies were returned two years later as part of a deal in which Israel released 10 Palestinian and Lebanese terrorists and returned the bodies of 199 Hezbollah terrorists.
The quotes also revealed the fractured and confused picture that the military and politicians had as the IDF struggled to clear the thousands of terrorists from the overrun border communities and bases.
Shas leader Arye Deri asked how many hostages there were at that point and was given different answers by the Shin Bet and the IDF.
According to then-Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar’s tally at that point, there were 14 abducted soldiers and 28 civilians, as well as “dozens of people we’ve lost contact with.”
Meanwhile, the head of the IDF’s Operations Directorate, Maj. Gen. Oded Basyuk, said there were 169 people with whom contact had been lost.
Hamas abducted 251 people that day, 48 of whom remain in captivity after Hamas returned 148 hostages during two deals, and the IDF rescued eight and recovered 51 bodies.
At least 26 of the remaining hostages have been confirmed dead by the IDF. The remaining 22 are believed to be alive; however, there are grave concerns for the well-being of two of them.
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich urged the cabinet meeting to “ignore” the hostages, arguing that Israel “cannot operate in this mindset.”
Smotrich has been heavily outspoken against hostage deals over the two years of war, claiming that there is “no greater danger to Israel” than stopping the war and that the hostages’ families’ pain was “overcoming reason.”
He has threatened to quit the government over hostage deals on multiple occasions, most recently in late August, and made a similar threat in January after a three-phase hostage-ceasefire deal started, saying that if Israel did not resume the war after the first phase, he would resign.
Returning the hostages was ultimately included in Israel’s official goals for the war.
Meanwhile, then-defense minister Yoav Gallant told the cabinet meeting that he had instructed the IDF that there would “be no conversation and no messages to Hamas. No negotiations.”
“They’ll only talk to us when they’re on the floor with their heads under water. Until then, every legal target in Gaza will be attacked,” Channel 12 quoted him saying.
A wider government meeting was held five hours later, at 6 p.m., and the issue of the hostages was raised again and was not included in Halevi’s list of objectives for the war.
“We are proposing a plan of action, here are its components: Stabilization of defense — close the border; denial of military and governmental capabilities (for Hamas) and changing defense agreements; creating deterrence — they made a mistake! Our response won’t be proportional either; hostages — not among our objectives, but they center and guide us,” he said, according to Channel 12.
The report added that Smotrich interjected with “If you have to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk,” a quote he attributed to former US president Bill Clinton but which actually comes from the film “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” evoking a burst of laughter from the meeting’s attendants.
Negotiations for a new deal proposed by US President Donald Trump are underway in Egypt.
Trump’s 20-point plan calls for a gradual Israeli withdrawal and the release of all remaining hostages within 72 hours of the start of a truce, among other conditions, and is aimed at ending the war in Gaza.