Recent polls by the Jerusalem-based research center Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) have shown that 82 percent of Israelis support some form of agreement on the release of the hostages in the Gaza Strip, reported the Wall Street Journal. However, supporters remain deeply divided over the terms of an agreement. “There are people who say we must get the hostages back; others say we must continue the war to secure the south,” the US newspaper quoted Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the US, as saying. “It’s been the same since the first day of the war, nothing has changed,” he told the newspaper.
The main point of contention in the negotiations is currently the question of how long Israeli troops can remain stationed in the Philadelphia Corridor in southern Gaza on the border with Egypt. Israel’s security cabinet recently decided to maintain control of the corridor. In a statement by the relatives of the abducted people, Netanyahu and his coalition partners had decided to “torpedo the ceasefire agreement for the corridor, thereby knowingly condemning the hostages to death.”
Defense Minister Joav Galant demanded that the security cabinet’s decision be reversed. “It is too late for the hostages who were murdered in cold blood,” Galant wrote on Platform X. “We must bring the hostages who are still in Hamas captivity home.” According to consistent media reports, Galant had a heated argument with Netanyahu during the cabinet meeting.
