After questioning several hostages who returned from captivity, the defense establishment has admitted that it did not properly estimate the locations where some hostages were held, Kan News reported on Sunday.
The significance of this is that the concern of harming hostages and limiting the areas of the manuvre in the Gaza Strip before the ceasefire was correct since Israel did not know where the hostages were, or more importantly, where they were not.
Last September, the IDF presented the political echelon with a dilemma regarding the continuation of the war - whether to continue the war in other areas of the Gaza Strip, even at the cost of endangering more hostages.
The dilemma came against the backdrop of the murder of the six hostages in August while the IDF operated in the area.