The “blood document” is reported to have contained the names of three Israeli captives whose bodies were recently recovered by the Israeli military.
An investigation by an Israeli website has revealed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “deliberate sabotage” of achieving a ceasefire with Hamas that could have saved the lives of at least four Israeli captives that were found dead by the Israeli military in southern Gaza on Sunday.
According to a YNET article by Israeli investigative journalist Ronen Bergman, the seven-page document was tabled by Israel in July, halting the diplomatic efforts of the three mediating countries – Qatar, Egypt, and the United States.
This led to an unnamed senior Israeli security source, quoted by Bergman, to accuse Netanyahu of purposely undermining truce talks.
“This document was born in sin – an attempt by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to torpedo the positive momentum that was in the negotiations,” the security source said.
“When we all thought it was possible to agree on an agreement, the Israeli public was flooded with disinformation, if not actual lies,” he continued. “Only one thing will certainly not happen, because it was created specifically to prevent this – a hostage [release] deal.”
Bergman’s source dubbed it the “blood document”, saying its pages are “stained with the blood of the six abductees who were murdered in a tunnel in Rafah”.
The article reports that the first two pages of the document contained text and another three pages contained maps, which indicated Israeli forces would maintain a presence in the Philadelphi Corridor.
The remaining two pages contained tables with lists of captives’ names who were being held in the Gaza Strip.
Four of the six captives found dead on Sunday were among the names in the document. They were earmarked under the “humanitarian” criteria, set for release under a ceasefire deal that did not materialise.
The document contained “clarifications” from Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu pertaining to Israel-Hamas negotiations. However, these were in fact changes pushed by Netanyahu which altered US President Joe Biden’s proposal in May.
IBiden’s tabled proposal initially included a three-phased ceasefire plan, which would have lasted for six weeks each.
The plan involved a complete ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the besieged Gaza Strip, and the release of captives held in the enclave in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Al Jazeera reported that a telegram statement from Hamas welcomed Biden’s proposal.
According to Bergman’s report, when it emerged that Hamas was willing to agree to the terms of the May proposal before issuing an official response, Israel’s ultra far-right Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, deemed this a “sign of weakness” and argued that Israel should reject the proposal.
Continued war rhetoric
In the wake of mounting pressure to ensure the release of Israeli captives, Netanyahu said during a press statement on Monday that Israel has historically agreed to tabled proposals.
This is despite Bergman’s findings and Biden answering “no” to reporters when asked if Netanyahu was doing enough to secure a ceasefire deal, Al Jazeera reported on Monday. Biden added that Washington was “very close” to tabling yet another proposal for a final agreement.
Despite this and in stoking up continued war rhetoric, Netanyahu also said that the international community needs to “apply maximum pressure” on Hamas.
In response to Israeli accusations that Hamas is responsible for the captives’ deaths, the movement stated that the true responsibility lies with “the criminal terrorist Benjamin Netanyahu and the biased American administration,” which they said are accountable for the failure of negotiations to halt the Israeli aggression against Palestinians and facilitate a prisoner exchange.
Hamas has maintained that it had offered to release Israeli hostages in exchange for Israel’s end to its war on Gaza in the first few days after October 7.
Drop Site News journalist Jeremy Scahill reported a Hamas official saying that Israeli civilian captives were leveraged by Israel to continue its blockade and attack of the Gaza Strip.
“From the first week [after October 7], we talked to some people, some mediators, that we want to return the civilians, but Israel refused,” Ghazi Hamad, the former Hamas deputy foreign minister and a longstanding member of its political bureau, told Scahill.
