Yoav Gallant: Government didn't do everything to return hostages
Former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant gave a wide-ranging interview in which he tries to set things straight from his perspective regarding the war and the hostages.


Yoav Gallant, who served as Defense Minister before, during, and for much of the period after October 7, gave an interview to Ynet in which he accuses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of endangering the hostages and failing to secure military successes when the opportunity arose.
Gallant claims that contrary to its own claims, the government did not do everything it could to free the hostages, and that it in fact missed an opportunity to get the same deal it did now on better terms.
Gallant says that the government could have gotten the deal it is currently adhering to in July or even April, and without the additional 110 terrorists serving life sentences for involvement in the murder of Israelis in various terrorist actions. This echoes claims by many in the opposition that Israel got the same deal it could have in May when President Biden first proposed it and had it approved by the UN Security Council.
As for why the government didn't approve the deal earlier, Gallant blamed ministers Smotrich and Ben Gvir for vetoing the idea.
Gallant also said that Netanyahu was far more pessimistic about fighting Hezbollah in the first few days after October 7. According to the former Defense Minister, a strike was ready to go which would have forced "between 12 and 15,000" Hezbollah terrorists to put on vests with exploding walkie talkies, which would have paralyzed the group even worse than it ultimately was.
The former Defense Minister said that Netanyahu spoke of Tel Aviv skyscrapers coming down by the force of Hezbollah rockets, and hostages being held on rooftops in Gaza to prevent any serious IDF strike on the Strip or Hamas forces.
He claims that he was the one who ultimately approved all the IDF offensives and initiatives, save the preemptive strike that was aborted on October 11, and that the war was on him.
Finally, Gallant said that the failure of the defense establishment to wake him when the Hamas SiM cards were detected as going on, considered to be a sign of a major Hamas operation, was the main reason he failed to help stop the October 7 attack.
Prime Minister Netanyahu dismissed Gallant in November following repeated clashes over implementation of government policy and decisions, though the official statement did not specify what decisions. He was replaced by Israel Katz as Defense Minister and eventually resigned from the Knesset.