Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “pushing for the release the hostages through decisive military victory,” according to a diplomatic source quoted Sunday by Hebrew media,
The source’s comments came as captives’ relatives slammed reported plans to expand the fighting in the Gaza Strip and slammed Netanyahu for indicating, in a video statement on harrowing footage of two hostages, that there was no ceasefire-hostage deal in sight.
In comments carried by several outlets, the unnamed source said “an understanding is forming that Hamas is not interested in a deal.”
Therefore, the source said, “the prime minister is pushing for the release of hostages through decisive military victory, combined with the entry of humanitarian aid to areas outside the combat zone, and, as much as possible, outside of Hamas control.” The source did not elaborate on how such a plan would work.
The source was said to have added that “Israel is in contact with the Americans,” whose special envoy Steve Witkoff said Saturday that Washington was aiming to end the Gaza war rather than expand it, and that the US was no longer interested in partial hostage deals.
According to Channel 12 news, due to the US pivot away from deals that would temporarily pause the fighting in exchange for only some of the hostages, Israel is set to decide this week if it will expand the fighting — even at the risk of harming hostages — or allow more time for a potential deal.
Illustrative: IDF soldiers are seen in the Gaza Strip in a handout photo released July 28, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)
The network reported that Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz are undecided on the matter, while the rest of the security cabinet is divided.
Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, Military Secretary Maj. Gen. Roman Gofman, and Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs were said to be in favor of expanding the war.
On the other hand, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, Shas leader Aryeh Deri, National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi and Mossad chief David Barnea reportedly oppose expanding the fighting, as do the Shin Bet’s negotiator, who is known by the Hebrew initial “Mem,” and Maj. Gen. (res.) Nitzan Alon, who is overseeing the hostage file for the military.
Hostage families decry plan to expand fighting
In a video statement Sunday evening, Netanyahu said propaganda footage of hostages Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski — clips from which the hostages’ families approved for publication the past two days — showed Hamas was uninterested in a hostage deal.
The footage, published respectively by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad last week, show the hostages to be pale and skeletal. David could be seen in an underground tunnel digging what he said he feared was his grave.
Netanyahu said the videos strengthened his resolve to vanquish the terror group.
Still images of hostages Ram Braslavski (left) and Evyatar David from Hamas propaganda videos, cleared for publication by their families in August 2025. (Composite screenshot)
“I understand exactly what Hamas wants,” he said in a video released by his office. “It doesn’t want a deal. It wants to break us — with these horrifying videos, with the false horror propaganda it spreads across the world.”
The premier said he was “shocked” by “the horrifying videos” and spoke with the hostages’ families.
Apparently referring to the hand of a captor that can be seen in the video of David, Netanyahu said that as the hostages “waste away in a dungeon… the Hamas monsters surrounding them — they have thick, fleshy arms. They have everything they need to eat. They are starving them the way the Nazis starved the Jews.”
“But we will not break,” Netanyahu said, adding: “I am filled with even greater determination to free our captive sons, to eliminate Hamas, and to ensure that Gaza will never again pose a threat to Israel.”
Following Netanyahu’s statement, and in response to the Hebrew media reports about cabinet plans to expand the fighting in Gaza, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said the premier “is leading Israel and the hostages to the abyss.”
Anti-government, pro-hostage deal protesters rally around a fire in front of the Begin Road entrance to the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv, August 2, 2025. (Jack GUEZ / AFP)
“Netanyahu is preparing the greatest scam,” said the Forum, which represents a majority of the families of the remaining 50 hostages. “The talk, which has been heard again and again, about releasing the hostages through decisive victory, is a fraud.”
“For 22 months now the public has been sold the illusion that military pressure and intense fighting will bring the hostages back,” said the group. “Even before the draft for a comprehensive deal was written, we’re being told there is no feasibility for a deal.”
“The truth must be told: Expanding the war endangers the lives of the hostages who are at risk of imminent death. We saw the chilling images of the hostages in the tunnels, they won’t survive more long days of horror,” the group said, adding that expanding the Gaza war “is a guarantee of the failure of the century.”
“There is no victory nor any revival in it,” the group added.
‘Not something we didn’t know’
Despite Netanyahu’s professed shock at the state of David and Braslavski, Hebrew media reported that the cabinet and other security forums were repeatedly briefed in recent weeks that the remaining hostages were being starved.
Sources familiar with the issue were cited by the Ynet news site as saying: “The visual was still devastating, but it’s not something we didn’t know.”
Hostage families and their supporters rally at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv on August 2, 2025. The screen shows, from right to left, pictures of hostage Evyatar David before his abduction; in a propaganda video from February 2025; and in a propaganda video from July 2025. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)
The security establishment was said to have warned in a recent closed meeting: “The hostages are suffering difficult captivity conditions. Their conditions are deteriorating; their captors are starving them. This didn’t happen because of lack of access to food — the captors received orders to starve the hostages and give them minimal food, only to keep them alive.”
Braslavski and David are among the 20 hostages still thought to be alive in Gaza. All are young men abducted during the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, when thousands of terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.
Terror groups in Gaza are also holding the remains of at least 28 hostages confirmed dead by the IDF, including the body of an IDF soldier killed fighting in Gaza in 2014. There are grave concerns for the well-being of two other hostages, Israeli officials have said.
