Maj. Gen. Nitzan Alon’s bombshell accusations against Netanyahu and Smotrich expose a government that allegedly sabotaged hostage deals to prolong a war it called a fight for “total victory.”
The Confession That Shook Israel
It came from the very top of Israel’s military establishment—and it has vindicated what opponents of the war have argued from the very beginning.
Maj. Gen. (res.) Nitzan Alon, the former head of the Israeli military’s Hostages and Missing Persons Command and the IDF’s point man on hostage negotiations since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, delivered a stunning rebuke of his own government this week at the Herzliya Conference at Reichman University.
His message was unequivocal: Israel’s war in Gaza could have ended at least a year earlier. The government chose to prolong it. And up to 40 Israeli hostages died as a result.
“We fought a long war that could have been ended at least a year earlier,” Alon said. “The cabinet and the political leadership refused earlier, comprehensive deals in the name of that same ‘total victory,’ which I believe was a falsehood.”
The Claim: ‘Thanks to Me, All the Hostages Are Here’
The backdrop to Alon’s explosive remarks was a statement by far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who appeared on Nadav Perry’s “All In” podcast and took personal credit for the hostages’ return.
“I think I have a dramatic, even decisive, impact on the war,” Smotrich said. “I think that if not for me, the war in Gaza would have been halted even before [the operation in] Rafah.”
“By the way, unlike how some are trying to portray me as some heartless person who doesn’t care about the hostages, I think it is thanks to me that all the hostages are here.”
Smotrich, who leads the far-right Religious Zionism party, has repeatedly voted against hostage release agreements throughout the war. He opposed all but the first hostage release agreement reached in November 2023 and later voted against broader deals negotiated in early 2025.
The Response: ‘40 Hostages Died Because of Delay’
Alon did not mince words in his response.
“What can I say about this statement?” Alon said. “Even when we talk about having returned all of the hostages: about 40 hostages who were taken alive were killed and murdered, and some of them by our own power, others by their abductors, and some could not survive the conditions [of captivity].”
“In certain cases, with different conduct and decisions, or different negotiations, we might have been able to bring them back alive,” he said. “That is final, and we should not forget it.”
Alon was clear about where responsibility lay: “I don’t think Minister Smotrich, who opposed some of the agreements at different stages, can take credit for bringing back all the hostages.”
He also rejected the idea that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or the broader cabinet deserved credit for their insistence on returning all hostages rather than accepting interim partial deals.
The Strategy: Partial Deals to Keep Fighting
Perhaps Alon’s most damning accusation was this: the government deliberately chose partial hostage agreements over comprehensive ones—not to bring hostages home, but to keep the war going.
“When the alternative of partial deals was put on the table before the cabinet, and the issue was partial versus a broader agreement, the choice [up until fall 2025] was a partial agreement to allow for continuing the war,” Alon said.
“There was some logic to that,” he acknowledged. “But strategically, to manage the war for more than two years until, in effect, an American administration forced us to end it was not the optimal path—not in terms of the length of the war or the price we paid in every respect.”
“The choice was a partial agreement to allow the fighting to continue again and again, and the American administration forced us to end the war,” Alon said.
In other words: Israel’s leaders prioritized continued military operations over bringing hostages home alive. Only when the United States—under President Donald Trump—intervened did the government finally end its full-scale assault.
The Human Cost
Alon’s testimony puts a human face on the government’s strategic choices.
Throughout the two years that Alon served as lead coordinator for returning Israeli hostages—from October 2023 until October 2025—there were multiple times he pushed for earlier deals but was denied by Netanyahu.
“When we speak about returning all the hostages, we must remember that about 40 hostages who were abducted alive died in captivity,” Alon said. “I don’t forget that.”
Alon said Israel had “paid a heavy price in soldiers killed, perhaps even some hostages killed, and immense costs in blood and money that were not necessary.”
The war’s extended length, he argued, led to “huge unnecessary losses in fallen soldiers and the death of up to 40 hostages.”
The Government Fires Back
Not surprisingly, the government and its allies pushed back fiercely.
Likud, Netanyahu’s party, accused Alon of seeking “to surrender to Hamas’s terms, leave Gaza, stop the war” while allegedly leaking from classified discussions.
“It is good that Prime Minister Netanyahu did not listen to him,” Likud said, arguing that otherwise Israel would not have achieved key military objectives.
The Religious Zionism party issued its own sharp response, stating that throughout two years of war, Alon “pushed for total surrender to Hamas”. The party said that had his position been accepted, “Hamas would today be back in control along the border communities’ fence, with international guarantees for rebuilding the Strip without disarmament.”
The party concluded it was “fortunate Israel did not surrender to Alon and what it called his irresponsible campaign calling on Israel to capitulate to a terror organization.”
The Broader Context: A History of Rejected Deals
Alon’s accusations fit a broader pattern documented throughout the war:
- November 2023: Israel refused a five-day ceasefire in exchange for the release of some hostages.
- January 2024: Netanyahu rejected Hamas ceasefire and hostage release offers.
- May 2024: President Joe Biden proposed a six-week deal that would include a full ceasefire and hostage release. He admitted that far-right members of Israel’s government wanted to keep fighting for years—and that the hostages were not a priority to them. Yet Biden did not pressure Israel to accept the deal and continued to arm and facilitate the military campaign.
- June 2024: Netanyahu said he was interested in a partial deal that would free some hostages but allow Israel to resume its onslaught.
- May 2024: Leaked comments from Alon himself—made while he was still in his role—revealed his desperation: “We are desperate. With this government formation, there will be no deal. The deal I’m pushing for would provide for the return of all the hostages, while Hamas insists that it must provide for an end to the war.”
By early 2025, the deal Israel eventually signed—after Trump became president—was essentially Biden’s own plan repackaged. Biden complained Trump was taking credit for “his” deal, but he could have forced Israel to accept it months earlier. He chose not to.
‘The Hostages Were Never the Priority’
The evidence, Alon’s testimony suggests, points to a damning conclusion: the welfare of Israeli hostages was never the government’s genuine priority.
Far more hostages were killed by Israeli bombs than were ever freed by military means. The vast majority were released through ceasefires and negotiated exchanges—the very deals the government repeatedly sabotaged.
Returned hostage Or Levy reacted to Smotrich’s self-congratulation with fury:
“If you mean to say it is thanks to you that hostages were murdered [in captivity] while you torpedoed deals—then yes,” Levy wrote. “If it were up to you, we wouldn’t have returned to this day… Bezalel Smotrich, you are a shameful minister, a shameful citizen and a shameful human.”
What Comes Next: ‘Voluntary Migration’ and Colonization
Alon’s revelations take on added urgency given what Israeli leaders are now planning for Gaza’s future.
Netanyahu has said that what he calls “voluntary migration” of Palestinians from Gaza remains on the table. When asked whether migration was still on the agenda, Netanyahu clarified: “Voluntary migration.”
Smotrich has been even more explicit. He has said Israel is ready to establish three settlements in northern Gaza immediately—requiring only Netanyahu’s “green light”. He has stated that the Israeli military currently holds nearly 70% of Gaza’s territory and that Israel needs to “complete the conquest of the remaining area, defeat Hamas, and establish a belt of Jewish settlements that will serve as a security buffer.”
Smotrich has also argued that Gaza could be emptied of half its population through “voluntary” migration within two years. He has said the process of “emigration from Gaza will begin in the coming weeks,” adding: “Gazans will have nothing to look for in Gaza in the next 10-15 years.”
The ‘Board of Peace’ and the Humanitarian Shelters
Meanwhile, a parallel plan is taking shape—one that critics have described as preparing concentration camps for Gaza’s surviving population.
The U.S.-backed Board of Peace—an 11-member Palestinian technocratic body formed in January on the initiative of President Trump—is preparing to launch a pilot program to manage “humanitarian shelters” in areas of Gaza not under Hamas control.
According to Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom, which reported the plan approvingly, the Board of Peace is seeking to establish “large logistics warehouses that will serve its efforts to regulate the humanitarian shelters”. The first “tactical vehicles” have already arrived at a logistics base near Gaza.
The newspaper described the effort as a “pincer movement”: the military seizing more territory as the population is siphoned into controlled zones, in the hope that Hamas is left “without a population, territory or resources.”
Critics have drawn stark comparisons. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned that a planned “humanitarian city” inside Gaza intended to hold hundreds of thousands of Palestinians would be a “concentration camp.” Baroness Kennedy of the UK made similar comments, saying the plan would force Palestinians into a “concentration camp.”
Officials said the areas would receive caravans and aid—but not the concrete needed to actually rebuild Gaza.
A Reckoning to Come?
Alon’s testimony represents one of the most significant insider accounts to emerge from Israel’s war in Gaza—a confession from the very top of the military establishment that the government’s claims and excuses were built on falsehoods.
“The Cabinet and the political leadership refused earlier, comprehensive deals in the name of that same ‘total victory,’ which I believe was a falsehood,” Alon said.
He concluded that only U.S. intervention forced Netanyahu and the government to end the war—and that otherwise, they would have continued, still failing to achieve the disarmament of Hamas.
As one analyst put it: Israel was never interested in getting its hostages back as any sort of priority. It willingly sacrificed them to continue its genocide.
One day, there will be accountability. And people are going to go to prison.