On Thursday, political sources in Tel Aviv revealed a ready-made project for a prisoner exchange deal between Israel and the Al-Qassam Brigades (Hamas), which had been agreed upon and implemented since Tuesday, but the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, withdrew from it at the last minute.

The sources explained that Netanyahu gathered ministers to approve the deal, but after listening to the objections of the army and some ministers, “he was deterred, retreated, and feared partisan reactions that would threaten his government, so he ended the meeting without decisions, and refrained from holding a second session in the following two days.”

The families of the Israeli prisoners received this news with great alarm. During the third day of the march it organized from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, to raise the voices of the prisoners loudly, they began demanding the immediate approval of the deal. Orit Meir Jan, whose son Almog was kidnapped on October 7, said, “It has become clear that the Israeli government does not place the issue of our kidnapped children at the top of its attention. We are very concerned for the lives of our children. We have gone through 41 very difficult days, and the government does not give us any hope, so we are embarking on this march and we will not stop until our children return.”

Details of the transaction

Informed sources said, in an interview with Nahum Barnea, a writer for the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, that “the deal that was brought for approval, on Tuesday night, in the mini-security ministerial council (cabinet), includes the release of 50 kidnapped persons, including women, children and the elderly, in exchange for Five days of ceasefire and the release of women and boys from prison. The cabinet was supposed to approve it, and the government was supposed, on Wednesday, to convene and approve the deal, as necessary, but this did not happen. The cabinet session ended without a decision. The government did not meet yesterday, not even the cabinet session that was planned for the next day. As the hours passed, the impression became that the plan was being torn apart. 

The initial opposition was to the duration of the ceasefire: the political level requested that its time be shortened by three days. The second objection was to the number: the political level requested an increase in the number of editors. The counterargument that at this moment Yahya Sinwar (head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip) is not judging more than 50 kidnapped persons, within the classification that was specified, did not convince Netanyahu and his ministers.

Hamas conditions

Barnea says: “The conditions imposed by Hamas are very difficult. The most dangerous thing about them is the duration of the ceasefire. Five days is an eternal period, when three army brigades are at the height of a ground operation. The mere existence of negotiations with this organization, after the massacre it committed, creates a moral and ethical problem. Yahya Sinwar, the partner imposed on us, is a murderer, blackmailer and shameless at the same time. But Netanyahu and the ministers knew along the way what was in the package and what was not. According to a certain narrative, Netanyahu understood the price, and then, a moment before the decision was made, when the price became realistic, he became afraid and stepped back. This happened in dozens of operational decisions in the past. Without connection to the content of the decisions, the decision process is destructive, as it creates a lack of certainty among the state envoys who are engaged in the task, and among the mediators between us and the other party. The decision is not simple.

He added: “I do not envy any of the decision-makers; Not in the cabinet, not in the army. It is possible to decide in this direction, or it is possible to decide in another direction. What is prohibited is to mislead families. Freeing the kidnapped is not the primary goal in this war. It is the second goal. One of the participating officers told me at the beginning of the march: We are talking about denounced killers. Every child who gets out of there alive is a miracle. First of all, let them get out. In government they may talk like him, but in practice they act differently. 239 kidnapped persons are not bargaining materials. They are sons and daughters of human beings. Some of them are not alive, some are sick or disabled, some are infants: every other day of them in the captivity of terrorist organizations can be critical. There are those in the system who hope that if Sinwar is assassinated, his successors will reduce the price. Experience shows the opposite: the successors tighten positions. Whatever the case, it will be good if the army and Shin Bet succeed in reaching Sinwar, his colleagues, and better one hour early.”

“What is Sinwar thinking?”

Barnea continued: “It is interesting to know what Sinwar thinks about the way Israel deals with them. Initially, the government said that no humanitarian aid would pass into the Strip without the kidnappers being freed; After that, it opened the door to humanitarian assistance, and even welcomed it. The government said that it would not agree to a ceasefire, nor to pulses; Now it agrees. The government said it will not allow fuel to enter the Strip. Now it approves 24,000 liters of diesel, claiming that the fuel is needed to allow the agency's trucks to provide relief to refugees. The army does not doubt that some of the fuel will reach Hamas. This is a reasonable price for the purpose of reducing pressure from the White House, the European Union, Egypt, and international organizations. Reducing pressure gives time, and the army needs a lot of time. Each individual decision is reasonable, but the process indicates that Israel has no red lines: they draw red lines, and then they cross them and draw a new line.