Former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant criticized the government, claiming that they did not do everything possible to bring the hostages home from Gaza.
In an interview with Yediot Aharonot, Gallant said that he "thinks the Israeli government did not do everything to bring back the hostages."
According to him, Israel could have received more living hostages for less terrorists.
"In practice, we could have received the same deal with more hostages, at a lower price, because here we have an additional 110 terrorists serving life sentences, who were not included in the discussions then. In practice, what you see today, and what we had in July, are the same thing."
Contrary to Gallant's statements, Israel did not bring down the deal when it was proposed over the summer - Hamas did. In August, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Netanyahu told him that he accepts the ceasefire deal proposed by the US, and that they were waiting to hear that Hamas has done the same.
When asked why he believed the deal fell through, Gallant said, "[Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich and [then-National Security Minister Itamar] Ben Gvir declared clearly: They dragged the Cabinet in their direction."
Gallant also estimated that Israel made a mistake when it did not act against Hezbollah at the start of the war.
"I think that the fact that we didn't act on October 11 was the biggest lost security opportunity in the State of Israel's history. Not just in this war," he said.
In his opinion, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu displayed weakness in the early days of the war: "The Prime Minister, from the first day and throughout the first weeks, certainly until the end of the first hostage deal, gave off a feeling of pessimism that I was not a party to. Ahead of the ground operation in Gaza it was, 'There will be thousands killed. They'll use the hostages as human shields and place them on the rooftops and at the entrances to the homes.' I opposed this, I told him that is not the situation. And I asked him to call the Cabinet as quickly as possible."
In fact, hostages were used as human shields for both Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and other senior Hamas figures.