Former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen said on Sunday that, in his opinion, the return to fighting and increasing the pressure on Hamas will soon allow for further discussion on the release of hostages.
"I am convinced that there is one thing that brought Hamas to talk to us, beyond the mediators, and that is the massive ground and air campaign they are currently experiencing. Without that, they would not have agreed with us on anything," Cohen said in an interview with Channel 12 News.
He stressed that "the attack right now is the right thing to do. We need to act and do so with full faith that as we deepen and increase the attack, we will bring Hamas to the need to talk to us about additional deals."
"Three efforts are underway to bring all the hostages home. The military effort is the first, there is an effort by special operations and of course special abilities that should bring us to an operational result that will bring them to our disposal. Even during the fighting, we will achieve a result and that is where we must strive. We must not give up until the last of the hostages is in our hands."
On the goals of the war, Cohen said that "Yahya Sinwar is watching us and our achievements in the Gaza Strip. We need to get to him because he is marked for death. The war should end, as best we can, with Sinwar and all of Hamas not being there at all."
He was asked about the words of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken who said that Israel does not have a time frame of months in which it would receive international backing for the war against Hamas and replied, "When we talk about the US, it seems that they have a clear plan for what will happen in the war. The very fact that the US administration continues to back the State of Israel and is aware of the war plans, helps in the release of the hostages, that Antony Blinken also comes here to closely observe the data."
Cohen announced that he had established a think tank of experts to deal with the issues of the day after the war within the State of Israel. He preferred not to respond the question of whether the group of experts is related to any political ambitions on his part.