600 Signatures, Including Former Prime Minister Barak
According to the British daily The Guardian and BBC on August 4 (local time), former Israeli officials, including former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, appealed to U.S. President Donald Trump to "end the war, bring the hostages home, and stop the suffering." They stated, "It is our assessment that Hamas does not pose a strategic threat to Israel," and called on the United States to play a role in ending the war in Gaza.
Approximately 600 people, including former Prime Minister Barak and Tamir Pardo, the former head of the overseas intelligence agency Mossad, participated in this letter. The decision to release this open letter appears to have been driven by the assessment that Israel's expansion of military operations in the Gaza Strip is imminent.
Recently, it has been reported that Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump have determined that negotiations with the Palestinian militant group Hamas have not yielded significant results. Steve Witkoff, the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, also stated during a recent meeting with families of Israeli hostages that President Trump wants all surviving hostages to be released at once, and that he no longer intends to respond to Hamas's negotiation tactics.
At the negotiating table, Hamas has been adhering to a "salami-slicing" strategy, gradually releasing Israeli hostages in small numbers. In response, Special Envoy Witkoff said, "Fragmented deals are ineffective," and added, "We must now shift to an 'all-or-nothing' approach in these negotiations."
In particular, criticism of Hamas is spreading within Israel after the group released videos showing hostages in a state of malnutrition. As a result, Prime Minister Netanyahu is reportedly considering expanding military operations, anticipating the worst-case scenario in which the lives of the hostages could be at risk. At a cabinet meeting that day, Prime Minister Netanyahu stated, "We must continue to fight together to achieve our war objectives: the defeat of the enemy, the release of the hostages, and ensuring that Gaza is no longer a threat to Israel." He added, "Later this week, I will convene the cabinet to instruct the military on how to achieve these three objectives."
However, families of the hostages are opposing the expansion of military operations, criticizing Prime Minister Netanyahu for "leading Israel and the hostages to ruin."
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