Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened an emergency meeting at Israel Defense Forces headquarters in Tel Aviv on Sunday evening to discuss efforts to free the captives still being held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The meeting was convened in response to the rejection by Hamas of all proposals currently on the table, a senior security source told Israel’s Channel 13.
The terrorist group has continued to insist on its key demands that the war end and Israeli troops withdraw from the Gaza Strip.
Mossad chief David Barnea was to have presented a new proposal to a select group of ministers and senior security officials at the meeting, including Defense Minister Israel Katz and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, according to the report.
Katz, who took over the defense portfolio from Yoav Gallant on Nov. 8, reiterated on Sunday that the hostages’ return was Jerusalem’s “most important value goal.”
“As I defined from my first day in the role, returning the hostages home is our most important value goal,” he said “There have never been, and never will be, political considerations on the matter,” he added.
“Every meeting with the families of the hostages and those involved in the mission to return them fills me with more motivation, and I pledge to work together with the defense establishment in every possible way to return them home.”
Kan News reported on Sunday that Hamas’s senior leadership has relocated from Qatar to Turkey. The report cited unnamed Israeli sources as confirming the move, which was said to have taken place in “recent days.”
According to the broadcaster, the development could have “dramatic” consequences for the ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas, which have been mediated by the United States, Qatar and Egypt.
During a recent meeting in Washington between hostages’ families and senior Qatari officials, the relatives were told that Doha is “not giving up on the negotiations,” according to an earlier report by Kan. The Qataris also told the families that they had “paused the negotiations to apply pressure on both sides,” according to the report.
Hostage families met on Nov. 13 with outgoing President Joe Biden at the White House, and with president-elect Donald Trump’s State Department nominee Marco Rubio.
According to Jonathan Dekel-Chen, whose son Sagui was abducted to Gaza from Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7, 2023, the families asked Biden to collaborate with Trump’s team to secure the release of the hostages, to which Biden agreed.
“Biden reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to bringing all the hostages back. The administration has worked tirelessly to achieve a deal as soon as possible, and the President assured the families that these efforts will continue,” according to a White House statement.
Also on Nov. 13, Palestinian Islamic Jihad released a proof-of-life video of Russian-Israeli hostage Alexander (“Sasha”) Troufanov, who was abducted from his family home during the Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
In the undated video, the third of Troufanov released by Hamas, he says his age is 28, although he turned 29 on Nov. 11.
The two previous PIJ videos of Troufanov were released in May.
