In his very first interview because being dismissed in November, previous Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant implicated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of intentionally stalling a ceasefire offer that might have protected the release of more captives from Gaza. Gallant likewise declared Netanyahu turned down a significant preemptive strike versus Hezbollah, a relocation he thinks might have avoided the escalation of violence on Israel’s northern border.
” I believe that the Israeli federal government did refrain from doing whatever it might need to return the captives,” Gallant informed Yedioth Ahronoth in an interview set to be released completely on Friday.
According to Gallant, the present ceasefire-hostage offer is almost similar to one proposed as early as April, which was completed over the summertime. Had the federal government consented to it then, he argued, Israel might have protected the release of more living captives while using less concessions.
” In practice, we might have gotten the very same handle more captives, and at a lower cost, due to the fact that 110 terrorists serving life sentences were not in conversations then,” he stated. Gallant blamed hardline ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir for pressing Netanyahu’s cabinet far from accepting the offer, declaring they focused on political factors to consider over captives’ lives.