A former Israeli general who was the army’s point person for hostage negotiations at the beginning of the Gaza war says that a deal to return all Israeli captives could have been achieved “much earlier” than October 2025 but it was prolonged unnecessarily. The war was too long.” He was speaking during a Washington Institute for Near East Policy webcast marking three years since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel preceding the genocidal war that has killed over 74,000 Palestinians. Alon referred to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that Israel must achieve “total victory” before signing a deal as “false”.
He called the October 2025 “ceasefire” a “strategic achievement” that has since curbed Hamas’s military power. But he said it could have been secured much sooner with “maybe some hostages that got killed or murdered during their captivity [coming] back home alive.” Hamas and Israel carried out a prisoner exchange deal in October 2025 under a ceasefire agreement that saw the release of nearly 2,000 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli jails and 20 Israeli captives held in the Gaza Strip. Alon had made similar comments in July, when he also criticised Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, saying Smotrich had opposed some of the agreements put forward at various stages and therefore could not take credit for the return of all the captives.
Speaking to Al Jazeera on Friday, former Israeli diplomat Alan Pinkas said Netanyahu had stalled the end of the war. Al-Thani said Doha reached out to Israeli officials “on day one … Our message was very clear. They [Hamas leaders] are asking for a window of ceasefire to get the civilians out,” Sheikh Mohammed said in an interview with Piers Morgan.
Pinkas said Alon’s comments were unlikely to influence the outcome of the vote as polls already “reflect public anger” over the Netanyahu government’s failure to prevent the Hamas attacks. A report by Israeli newspaper Haaretz claiming that United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan had warned Netanyahu about a possible attack also sparked outrage across Israel last month. Netanyahu said he would sue the outlet over its report, which he described as “fabricated” and “false”.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
