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The Israeli media covered the developments in the war on the Gaza Strip, the accompanying obstruction of the prisoner exchange deal by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the escalation on the Lebanese front after Hezbollah bombed for the first time the Safad area, which is located 30 kilometers from the border.
In an interview with the official Kan TV, the former head of the Security Council, Major General Reserve Yaakov Amidror, said that Israel apparently angered Hezbollah with an operation that imposed on it the necessity of responding in order to say, “You must stop.”
Amidror pointed out that what happened on the Lebanese borders was "a dialogue with fire in which each party says to the other: Beware, you have crossed your limits."
He added, "We feel that they have exceeded their limits, but I do not know if we did anything that prompted them to say that we also exceeded our limits," pointing out that there are differences between the two parties in the way these messages are delivered.
Amidror said that Israel is resorting to the method of targeting senior officials or specific targets, adding, "Intelligence men are the ones who know why Hezbollah responded in this way," stressing that it is the first time since 1948 that the northern settlements adjacent to Lebanon have been evacuated.
He confirmed that when he asked about the reason for the evacuation, he was told that it was the army’s instructions, adding, “I do not know if it was the army’s instructions or someone else’s instructions, but they are the most wrong decisions that were issued.”
The complexity of the prisoner exchange
Regarding the developments in the exchange deal, Kan channel’s political affairs correspondent, Suleiman Maswad, says that he received information indicating that the heads of the Mossad and Shin Bet agencies - along with reserve general Nitzan Allon - had formulated a new proposal for the exchange deal and presented it to Netanyahu, but he rejected it, which prompted Allon to (Responsible for the prisoners’ file) from traveling to Cairo to attend the negotiations.
Channel 13's military correspondent, Molia Wahlberg, also confirmed that sources told her that Netanyahu sent his political advisor to the Cairo meeting to ensure that Mossad chief David Barnea would not exceed the mandate given to him, and that he would only listen without making any proposals.
The correspondent said that the army published the video, which it says shows the leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) inside, Yahya Sinwar, moving in one of the tunnels, in order to put pressure on the movement.
As for Noam Dan (relative of one of the prisoners), she said to Channel 13, “It is embarrassing to find a man who is supposed to lead a sovereign state to achieve our goals, while we find him preoccupied with the fact that they (Hamas) do not want, or have not provided, a response,” adding, “How do we know that it is an absolute victory? Is it a concession?” For the lives of human beings (the prisoners) is the absolute victory?
She added, "What is the victory in seeing Sinwar moving inside the tunnels? What great discovery is this? What is its importance?"
She also said that this video "indicates the extent of our impotence and exposure we have reached in other fields."
Source: Al Jazeera