Top Israeli security officials held a meeting on Sunday with Defense Minister Israel Katz on the hostage issue, followed by a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Mossad Director Dadi Barnea, Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar and General Nitzan Alon warned the ministers that “even in the post-Sinwar era, Hamas will not give up its demands.” “Hamas maintains its conditions for a plan that would end the war and demands a total withdrawal of the IDF. There is no other way to bring the hostages home. Failure to follow this path means a dead end and the “abandonment of the hostages,” senior security officials said.
The meeting was held in a restricted format, not including the entire cabinet but only a few ministers, including Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and the Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir.
According to information revealed by the central news edition, during his visits to the headquarters of the hostages, the new Minister of Defense Katz had access to sensitive documents not yet published which paint a very gloomy picture of the situation of the hostages , men and women. This information could explain Katz’s statement at the end of the meeting, asserting that the return of the hostages is “the most important moral objective of the war.”
Confidential documents presented to the Minister of Defense during a closed session reveal a particularly worrying situation regarding the condition of the hostages, which may have motivated his position on the priority of their release.
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