Former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant acknowledged ordering the occupation army to use the Hannibal Protocol, meaning to kill the Israeli captives held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
In remarks cited by Hebrew media on Thursday, the former Israeli DM admitted to ordering the controversial protocol that involves killing captives along with their captors.
Gallant also slammed former Police Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir for his provocative storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Al-Quds, stating that it “was like detonating the situation.”
Gallant made on Wednesday his first interview since being sacked in November. The ex-DM accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet of delaying a ceasefire deal that would have led to the return of more living captives.
“I think that the Israeli government did not do everything it could have to return the hostages,” Gallant told the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper in the interview, was to be published in full on Friday.
Gallant said the framework of the current ceasefire-captive deal looks nearly identical to an earlier proposal, on the table in April and finalized over the summer. If it had been accepted then, he insisted, ‘Israel’ could have brought back more living hostages while releasing fewer Palestinian security prisoners.
“In practice, we could have gotten the same deal with more hostages, and at a lower price, because 110 terrorists serving life sentences were not in discussions then,” Gallant said, referring to Palestinian prisoners who were freed by the Israeli occupation authorities as part of the swap deal.
Source: Israeli media