A former Israeli general who led hostage negotiations at the start of the Gaza war has said an Israel-Gaza hostage deal could have been reached about a year earlier, potentially saving lives and returning more captives alive.
Major General Nitzan Alon said the conflict had been prolonged unnecessarily and that an agreement could have been secured without undermining Israel’s wider strategic objectives.
“I think that we could [have gotten to] this point much earlier, maybe a year earlier or so, without any major implication on the other strategic goals of the war,” he said. “We missed it, actually. The war was too long.”
Alon was speaking during a Washington Institute for Near East Policy webcast marking three years since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
He rejected Benjamin Netanyahu’s argument that Israel had to achieve “total victory” before agreeing to a deal, describing that position as false. Alon said the October 2025 ceasefire had been a strategic achievement which reduced Hamas’s military power, but could have been reached much sooner.
“We could have – and we should have – shortened the war, brought all the hostages back, maybe a year earlier, and moved forward and maybe, you know, saved thousands of lives on both sides,” he said.
Former negotiator says captives could have returned alive
Under the October 2025 ceasefire, Israel and Hamas carried out a prisoner exchange involving nearly 2,000 Palestinians held in Israeli jails and 20 Israeli captives held in Gaza.
Alon said an earlier agreement might also have meant that some captives who were killed or died during their captivity could have returned home alive. He made similar remarks in July, when he criticised Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich for opposing some proposed agreements and said he could not claim credit for the return of all the captives.
Former Israeli diplomat Alan Pinkas separately said Benjamin Netanyahu had delayed the end of the war, arguing that a deal had been possible soon after the Hamas attack.
“It took almost two years before the hostages were returned, so it’s not just a missed opportunity, it’s tragic,” Pinkas said.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani said earlier this week that Israeli officials had rejected a Hamas proposal for the release of all captives in exchange for a limited ceasefire soon after the attacks.
Alon’s comments came less than a month before Israel’s October 27 legislative election. Pinkas said they were unlikely to alter the result, arguing that opinion polls already reflected public anger over the Netanyahu government’s failure to prevent the Hamas attacks.
