Israeli writer: Israel is on its way to a secret and free ceasefire

By Shelly Yachimovich

Despite all the horrors, atrocities and terrible failures of October 7, there is no cowardice, blindness and failure greater and more dangerous than Benjamin Netanyahu's cowardice in these hours. In practice, and despite the reckless and arrogant statements, Israel is in the advanced stages of responding to Hamas' condition for the return of the kidnapped people: a ceasefire. But our leaders lack the courage to do something simple, say this publicly, return 136 kidnapped people, and put an end to this most cruel and humiliating tragedy since the establishment of the state.

We say this again: Israel is on its way to a ceasefire. Reducing the size of the forces is the first evidence in the field, reducing the fighting and confining it to the Khan Yunis area only, reducing air attacks, demobilizing the reserves, large-scale distribution of humanitarian aid, re-institutionalizing Hamas rule, and Defense Minister Yoav Galant announcing the transition to a less intense phase of combat. This all confirms that we are here. Everything Hamas wanted from the beginning, it got for free. This is crazy.

Why do we give Hamas the gift of stopping the fighting without getting anything in return that is considered the most precious to us? Kidnapped? The abandoned, the hungry, the sick, the beaten. They die, one after another, whether from disease or hunger. Some of them die at the hands of those who capture them, and others at the hands of Israeli soldiers, whether by chance or in failed operations. It must be made clear that a failed operation is one in which prisoners return as corpses, instead of returning alive, in addition to the loss of brave young soldiers, who are asked to do the same thing, over and over again, and sacrifice their lives for a war that ends in failure.

Instead of stopping at this point, and we still have remnants of momentum, we enter a stage of stagnation, and we lose on all fronts: We did not defeat Hamas, and we did not recover the kidnapped people. The Israeli army’s statement yesterday, addressed to the families of the dead kidnapped, leaves no room for illusion, and stated: “We cannot rule out, or confirm, that these soldiers were killed by suffocation, poisoning, or as a result of an attack by the Israeli army, or an operation carried out by Hamas.” .

If the release of the kidnapped people to the last of them had been set from the beginning as a goal of the war. If the Israeli government announced that it would stop the war when the last kidnapped person returned. If the government had placed the families of the kidnapped in a position of honor before the world, instead of silencing them, gagging them, and inciting against them, we would have been able to continue striking Hamas while maintaining international legitimacy, without The Hague, and without risking losing American support, which it can be said is the one that Save us from the destruction of the Third Temple.

We have not done that, but it is still possible, and it must happen through secret and public channels of dialogue as well. All that is required is for the Prime Minister to stand up without any nonsense or trickery, and to announce that we are ready for a ceasefire in exchange for all the kidnapped people. After the return of the last kidnapped person, we will have enough time to try to achieve all the goals, real and imaginary, of this rightful war, which loses its credibility every moment we abandon the kidnapped ones and leave them to face their death.

Meanwhile, childish arrogance, and the obsession with creating an “image of victory” that will never be achieved, and our blindness to seeing that we are losing in all arenas, and Netanyahu’s need to exploit time for his political survival, and adhere to the threatening, arrogant and condescending rhetoric that has no cover, which represents a disconnected and sad echo of past glories. All of this will make us expelled from Gaza City, and forced to eat all the rotten fruits that cannot be digested this time.