Israeli media channels focused their discussions on Israel’s failure to achieve the goals of the war, and on the issue of returning to negotiations on a prisoner exchange deal with the Palestinian resistance and what can be expected from it, in addition to the situation in Rafah and the Egyptian-Israeli dispute after the Israeli army took control of the Rafah crossing.
In a discussion on Israeli Channel 12, Ofer Shelah, a researcher in strategic affairs and a former member of the Knesset, criticized the performance of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, and said that it had brought Israel to the situation it is in, and “if the war continues at the current pace, we will suffer a defeat that will not lead to the return of the kidnapped.” “It will not lead to a situation in which there is an alternative in Gaza.”
Major General Reserve Giora Eiland, former head of the National Security Council, said that the card that is still in Israel’s hand “is the ability to make a decision to end the war, which is what the whole world desires, the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), Egypt, Lebanese Hezbollah, and the United States of America.”
He added, “They – that is, the parties that support ending the war – are ready to pay us a price in exchange for ending the war, so what can be done now is a very simple deal, stopping the war after returning all the kidnapped people, and withdrawing all army forces from the Gaza Strip for a period that I do not know.”
According to Yehuda Cohen, the father of a prisoner soldier in Gaza, “There are things that Israeli officials are trying to achieve but they are not achieving anything, and there are hidden goals: returning and controlling the Gaza Strip, returning to settlement in Gaza, restoring security to the towns of the south, and then bringing back the kidnapped people.”
Cohen – who was speaking to the Kan 11 channel – saw that “Israel was defeated and humiliated on October 7, and since then not much has changed… How much time has passed that we have been fighting in Gaza?”, saying that Israel is unable to Achieve anything.
Regarding the prisoner exchange negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian resistance, Channel 13 political affairs correspondent Moria Asraf Wallberg said that they are supposed to officially resume in the coming days, after the director of the Israeli intelligence service (Mossad) David Barnea met with the director of the American Intelligence Agency (CIA) William Burns, and Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani.
She stated that the Egyptians are not participating in these negotiations, but they will participate in them during the week.
Regarding the Egyptian-Israeli dispute, Kan 11 military affairs correspondent Itay Blumenthal stated that the reason for this dispute is Egypt’s decision to freeze the entry of aid trucks from Al-Arish to Gaza, noting that the Israeli military leadership is currently holding discussions about the possibility of European or American responsibility for managing the Rafah crossing on the Palestinian side.
