The official Israeli channel refers to a “systematic deception operation” through which the Hamas movement was able to “mislead” Netanyahu’s office and exhaust it with “intensive negotiations” during which it made him feel that he was “close to a prisoner exchange deal,” before the October 7 attack.

On Tuesday evening, the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation (“Kan 11”) revealed what it described as the “trick” that Hamas practiced on the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in the weeks preceding the attack on October 7, which was launched by members of the Palestinian Brigades. Al-Qassam, on Israeli military sites and towns adjacent to the besieged Gaza Strip.

According to the official Israeli channel, the Hamas movement sent letters to the office of the Israeli Prime Minister, expressing its readiness to proceed with a prisoner exchange deal through which the two Israeli soldiers Hadar Goldin and Shaul Oron, who have been detained by the Hamas movement since the aggression on Gaza in 2014, will be released, in addition to the citizen Avra Mengistu. .

The channel considered that the Hamas movement tried to distract Israeli officials from the situation on the ground, and occupied them with indirect “intensive negotiations” that took place through several mediators, at the highest political level in Israel, and were managed by officials in Netanyahu’s office, while the movement’s military wing was preparing for the largest attack that would take place. It was carried out on Israeli targets.

The channel's report stated that intense negotiations took place during the past two years in an attempt to reach a prisoner exchange deal between the Hamas movement and the Israeli occupation authorities, and added, quoting Israeli officials, that these negotiations "intensified and escalated over the past months."

According to “Kan 11,” these negotiations took place through several mediators on the one hand, and the Prime Minister’s Office on the other hand, and under the supervision of Netanyahu’s military secretary, General Avi Gil. The channel indicated that Netanyahu refrained from appointing a new coordinator for "prisoners and missing persons" affairs after Yaron Blum ended his service in the position about a year ago.

The channel considered this to be further evidence that the recent negotiations initiated by the Hamas movement “were managed by Netanyahu himself, and his military secretary coordinated the file.” The channel quoted informed sources as saying, “The negotiations witnessed ups and downs, but on several occasions, Hamas made Israel feel that... "Very close to reaching a deal."

After the start of the war on Gaza, and in the wake of Operation “Al-Aqsa Flood,” Netanyahu appointed Gal Hirsch, coordinator of prisoners and missing persons affairs, amid a state of Israeli dissatisfaction with the latter’s performance and his treatment of the families of prisoners and hostages held by Hamas and other factions in the Gaza Strip, noting that Israel appreciates The number of prisoners and hostages in the Gaza Strip is 222 people

Source: Arab 48