While the war cabinet had decided to broaden the mandate of the negotiating team for the release of the hostages, and to make further concessions, Hamas announced that it rejected this new proposal.
For the terrorist organization, the precondition for any release of hostages is a complete cessation of fighting in the Gaza Strip, which Israel is not ready to accept.
Hamas uses the pretext of its acceptance of the agreement proposed by the Egyptians, behind the backs of the Israelis and the Americans, to shift responsibility for the failure of the negotiations to Israel and to claim that it has shown flexibility. He accuses Israel of using the negotiations as a cover to continue its military operations in the Gaza Strip.
In this context, recordings of conversations between Tsahi Hanegbi, the director of the national security council and families of hostages were broadcast. They show tense dialogue and sometimes dismissive responses from Hanegbi to the families’ distress and anger.
Following the publication of these recordings, the headquarters of the hostage families estimated that: “The government consciously decided to sacrifice the hostages, to renounce the basic moral principle according to which Israel never leaves anyone behind and to prefer prosecution from war to achieving the supreme goal of freeing hostages who were abandoned by the government. The hostages and the entire State of Israel are hostages of political interests which take precedence over national and republican duty. The headquarters of the families of the hostages calls on Israeli citizens to rise up. Stand with us in this fight for the soul of the country”.
