Israeli security officials warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday that there has been a steady decline in the amount of intelligence being gathered on the 101 people still held captive in Gaza, but that it is nevertheless clear the conditions in which they are held have deteriorated significantly.

The information was relayed to Netanyahu during a discussion on the plight of the hostages on the eve of the first anniversary of the October 7 Hamas terror onslaught in southern Israel, when some 1,200 people were slaughtered and 251 were seized as hostages.

“The more time that passes, there’s less and less intelligence on the hostages, and that’s very worrying,” a defense official was quoted by the Ynet news site as saying during the meeting, reportedly the first high-level engagement on the issue of the hostages in a month.

“There’s an impression that nobody is dealing with this, not the mediators, and everyone has given up,” a source with knowledge on the matter told the news outlet. “There’s a feeling that it’s fallen off the agenda given the fears of regional war.”

The discussion was attended by heads of security agencies, several government ministers and the government’s hostage point man Gal Hirsch.

During the meeting, security officials reiterated the grim estimation first shared last month that around half of the hostages are still alive, but that those who have survived until now are experiencing steadily worsening conditions.

Defense officials also warned Netanyahu and others at the meeting that Hamas has ordered those guarding hostages to execute them if they feel the army is getting close, Ynet reported, citing an unnamed source familiar with the details of the meeting.

Hamas first indicated that it had ordered its operatives to murder hostages if Israeli troops appeared to be closing in when the terror group executed six hostages in a tunnel in Rafah in late August, just days before troops operating in the area discovered their bodies and extracted them for burial in Israel.

Participants in the meeting were also provided with an update regarding the progress — or lack thereof — in indirect hostage deal negotiations between Israel and Hamas.

Sources privy to the details of the discussion reported that negotiations have remained at an impasse, with intermediary country Qatar reportedly distancing itself from Israel’s stance and moving closer to Hamas’s stated demands for a deal.

Meanwhile, the sources said, the US “just wants to avoid an escalation, and lives in a fantasy that we can reach an agreement with Iran about everything, [Hezbollah in Lebanon,] and Gaza, and settle it together. They live in a delusion.”

Israel is hoping that the limited ground operation it launched in southern Lebanon will shift the paradigm when it comes to the hostage negotiations, Ynet added, and that Hamas will feel the pressure being placed on its ally Hezbollah.

Hamas, meanwhile, issued a statement on Sunday, declaring that the group was not prepared to make concessions on its demands for a hostage release-ceasefire deal, which include a call for the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip — something that Israel has said it is not prepared to do.

In a speech aired on Hamas’s media channels, senior Hamas official Khalil Al-Hayya reiterated the terror group’s opposition to the hostage deal proposal endorsed by Israel.

“What we rejected yesterday, we will not accept tomorrow, and what the occupation (Israel) failed to impose by force, it will not take at the negotiating table,” he vowed in an address littered with praise for the October 7 massacre.

Lauding the invasion and assault of Israel’s southern communities as “glorious,” Al-Hayya claimed that “the Palestine cause has become the prime cause in the world and all parties now realize that there can be no security and no stability in the region unless our people gain their full rights.”

According to the Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry, the war in Gaza — sparked by the October 7 massacre — has claimed the lives of more than 40,000 people. The toll cannot be verified, however, and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 17,000 combatants in battle as of August and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.

Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.

Al-Hayya’s speech was aired as Israel launched a new ground operation in the northern Gaza city of Jabaliya, targeting efforts by Hamas to reestablish itself in northern Gaza. Several dozen terror operatives were killed in airstrikes and tank shelling, according to the IDF.

“The operation will continue as long as necessary, while systematically striking and thoroughly destroying the terror infrastructure in the area,” the IDF said of the operation.

Prior to the cabinet meeting on Sunday night, family members of hostages told Defense Minister Yoav Gallant that they feared the renewed offensive was endangering their loved ones, according to a statement by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.

“Military pressure kills hostages,” the family members reportedly told Gallant, alluding to a frequent government slogan that only military pressure will bring about the hostages’ return.

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.

Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released 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.

Agencies contributed to this report.