10 lies Netanyahu told Israelis about Gaza: military goals, hostages, and Hamas

Yedioth Ahronoth wrote that during the two-year war in the Gaza Strip, Israelis were told 10 lies as the public.

The first lie: “The war can be conducted with contradictory objectives” – meaning both Hamas’ infrastructure would be destroyed and Israeli hostages would be returned.

Israel announced that its two main war goals were the destruction of Hamas and the return of hostages. However, very few dared to say that these two objectives were contradictory and each would prevent the other from being achieved.

The second lie: “Only military pressure can bring back hostages” – 42 hostages were killed, some accidentally by Israeli army bombings, while others died for other reasons during captivity. The cabinet and army continued to insist that military pressure was the only way to free hostages. This claim became widely accepted as a fact, yet no one explained why the greater the military pressure and the closer the bulldozers came to Yahya Sinwar, the more stringent and firmer his demands became.

The third lie: “Hamas is not seeking an agreement” – Over the past two years, two contradictory messages were consistently fed to the Israeli public. The first message was positive: “An agreement is near,” and a decisive moment would come in the following week or hours.

A reserve officer in the Israeli intelligence services said that in 99% of cases, there was no reality behind these claims; they were fabricated stories intended to show progress via the media. When everything went wrong, the second message appeared. How many times during this period did you hear that Hamas was not seeking an agreement? All of these were lies promoted by parties with vested interests.

The fourth lie: “Netanyahu does not lead agreements to failure and always prioritized freeing hostages” – Nine days after the war began, 251 hostages, men and women, were in Gaza, yet they were not initially part of the war objectives. Under pressure from Gadi Eisenkot, who joined the war cabinet alongside Benny Gantz, this issue became a war objective.

The fifth lie: “The Philadelphia Axis is Hamas’ main smuggling route” – Netanyahu claimed that hostages were transferred through this axis. In reality, since 2017, no active tunnels existed in this axis, and nothing was transported through it. Nevertheless, Netanyahu continued claiming that controlling this axis was essential to prevent the transfer of hostages to Iran and Yemen.

The sixth lie: “If we only kill this man, Hamas will collapse and hostages will be freed” – Netanyahu repeatedly claimed that assassinating leaders such as Yahya Sinwar, Saleh al-Arouri, Ismail Haniyeh, Mohammed al-Deif, Mohammed al-Sinwar, etc., would cause Hamas to collapse. However, no one can claim that assassinations lead to surrender.

On the contrary, each assassination operation halted negotiations, and whenever negotiations resumed, Hamas imposed stricter conditions. One result of this thinking was the “Doha fiasco”: a building in Doha was bombed under the claim that killing Hamas leaders opposed to an agreement would push others toward it. The fiasco ended with Netanyahu’s humiliating apology to the host country’s leader.

The seventh lie: “If we occupy this city again, Hamas will collapse” – Again, cities were treated like assassination targets. Israel claimed that control over cities such as Rafah, Khan Yunis, Gaza, etc., would bring total victory, but later announced that the objective had shifted elsewhere.

The eighth lie: “Hamas will never release hostages” – Many opponents of the agreement claimed that negotiations were futile because Hamas would not free hostages. However, intelligence reports confirm that Hamas adhered to previous agreements regarding hostages.

The ninth lie: “Israeli protests help Hamas and make hostages pay a higher price” – An intelligence expert involved in the treatment of freed hostages said that half of the hostages he spoke to reported seeing or hearing about the protests, which actually gave them strength and morale. This alone disproves the claim that protests benefited Hamas.

The tenth lie: “Hamas surrendered in the current agreement” – Netanyahu, in a Friday speech, claimed that thanks to the agreement, Hamas would be disarmed and Gaza would be cleared of weapons. The problem is that Hamas has not signed any document to this effect. Nowhere in the texts does it mention adherence to disarmament, removal of leaders from Gaza, dissolution of Hamas, or full Israeli security control over the Gaza Strip.