Rami Igra, former head of the Mossad's Prisoners and Missing Persons Division, spoke Tuesday morning with Anat Davidov and Udi Segal on Radio 103FM, after Hamas rejected the current hostage deal proposal.
“I don’t think anything has changed since our last conversation. Hamas has said from the beginning: We are demanding an end to the war, not a ceasefire. They have added to it all kinds of other demands, such as the restoration of the Gaza Strip.” The withdrawal of the Israeli army. In short, what they have been demanding since day one is a return to the way things have been since October 6 and their continued existence. The alternative to that is to continue the war until the final goals of the Israeli army are achieved. Hamas is a religious movement that is ready to die by its sword for a reason that I do not understand. We are negotiating with ourselves and with the Americans over prices and they have not reached that point in the first place. The price question is the question from the mediators and the Americans. Hamas has said repeatedly: “You are not meeting our demands,” Igra began his words.
“With all the pain, and there is truly enormous pain, the State of Israel has no possibility of making the deal that Hamas demands. The State of Israel must think about the State of Israel, and the citizen must think about his family and his family.” Children, brothers, etc., and the state must think not only about them, but about you, me, and our future as well. Is this tolerance until we reach a ceasefire or patience until the hostages are released? The hostages' survival time is much shorter. In this regard, we must remember one thing: the price we pay, in the end, is not the prisoners we release, but the future towards which we are moving. And as we saw in the Shalit deal, it wasn't 1,027 prisoners, the death toll was 2,000 so far. It's not that Shalit is responsible for this, it's that the State of Israel is responsible for this. Our thinking is that it is possible to resolve this matter, to contain it, as we did. Before October 7, 2016.” Gaza is wrong.”
Ultimately, Israel and the IDF helped Hamas and terrorism
“There is no way to complete the work after that. Once we make a deal of this kind and commemorate the Hamas victory, we will see what we saw a few days ago in Dolev. We are strengthening the axis of evil; we are building it as we built Hamas in the Shalit deal. We have to understand that magic will not end this conflict tomorrow morning. “If they had left Gilad Shalit in captivity, we would not have put an end to this conflict.” [reached this point]… We strengthened Hamas, and we preferred Hamas over the Palestinian Authority.”
“Just as the price of the 250 people killed in the ground maneuver is, unfortunately, a necessary price. Yes, in war, there are necessary prices. But at the moment, Hamas has no real desire to make a deal, and will not do so.” Either do it. It wants to survive and continue its existence, and as of this moment, it is Israel that has managed to embarrass itself among countries in such a way that by tomorrow the world will force Israel to cease fire. Hamas will come, and Igra concluded by saying: “Future negotiations will be in a completely different position of power that we have no ability to deal with at all.”
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