After the hostages’ videos were released, Netanyahu spoke with their families, telling them that efforts to return all the hostages “will continue constantly and relentlessly”.
But an Israeli official – widely quoted by local media – said Netanyahu was working to free the hostages through “the military defeat of Hamas”.
The possibility of a new escalation in Gaza may further anger Israel’s allies who have been pushing for an immediate ceasefire as reports of Palestinians dying from starvation or malnutrition cause shock around the world.
The main group supporting hostages’ families condemned the idea of a new military offensive saying: “Netanyahu is leading Israel and the hostages to doom.”
That view was pointedly made in a letter by some 600 retired Israeli security officials sent to US President Donald Trump urging him to pressure Israel to immediately end the war in Gaza.
“Your credibility with the vast majority of Israelis augments your ability to steer Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and his government in the right direction: End the war, return the hostages, stop the suffering,” they wrote.
The group included former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo, Ami Ayalon, former chief of Shin Bet – Israel’s domestic secret service agency – former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and former Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon among others.
“It is our professional judgement that Hamas no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel,” they said.
“At first this war was a just war, a defensive war, but when we achieved all military objectives, this war ceased to be a just war,” said Ayalon.
The former top leaders head the Commanders for Israel’s Security (CIS) group, which has urged the government in the past to focus on securing the return of the hostages.
“Stop the Gaza War! On behalf of CIS, Israel’s largest group of former IDF generals and Mossad, Shin Bet, Police, and Diplomatic Corps equivalents, we urge you to end the Gaza war. You did it in Lebanon. Time to do it in Gaza as well,” they wrote to the US president.