Hamas planned to keep Israeli hostages for as long as a decade, Brig.-Gen. (res.) Gal Hirsch said in an in-depth interview, describing what he called the terror group’s long game of using captives, living and dead, as strategic leverage meant to grind down Israel over years.
Hirsch, whom Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed on October 8, 2023, as coordinator for the captives and missing, said his own internal assessment early on pointed to a far shorter timeline than Hamas’s, yet still measured in years. “I thought it would take double,” he said. “At least four years.”
In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, he also disclosed that Israel repeatedly prepared covert hostage rescue missions that never took place. Some were canceled because planners doubted they could succeed, he said, and others were shelved out of concern that rescuing one captive could endanger others held nearby. “If there was doubt about success,” Hirsch said, “take them out through negotiations, even if it takes time.”
The interview came days after Israeli forces recovered the remains of police officer Ran Gvili from Gaza, a development that, according to Israeli officials and multiple reports, closed the file on those abducted on October 7, 2023, whose whereabouts remained unresolved. Hirsch recalled calling Netanyahu with the update and telling him, in English, “Mission accomplished.”
'A storm of emotions' the night Gvili was identified
Hirsch described the hours leading up to the identification as an intense operational stretch that blended cabinet work, field coordination, and personal strain. The night before, he said, the cabinet met late, followed by discussions with Netanyahu after midnight. “Until 2 a.m., I spoke with the division commander in the field and people who work with me,” he said, adding that his team was tracking recovery efforts amid concerns about changing weather conditions.
Near dawn, Hirsch said, teams began identification work after large-scale recovery operations. He told the Post he tried to stay focused, even as he “imagined the moment many times.” When he received the message that Gvili had been found, he said, emotion broke through the routine. “My close team saw me jump to the heavens,” Hirsch recalled.
He said he reached Netanyahu during another high-level meeting because the update could not wait. “With a pulse of 200,” he said, “I told the prime minister: Ran Gvili is with us, we found him, and he is on the way home.” Hirsch said he asked Netanyahu to speak with the family, and then drove south toward the Nahal Oz area to meet Gvili’s father, Itzik, during the transfer. Reports on Gvili’s recovery identified his parents as Itzik and Tali.
Gvili’s recovery reverberated beyond the family. A central public symbol of the hostage crisis, Hostage Square’s counting clock, was switched off after 843 days, 12 hours, and six minutes, according to Israeli media reporting.
'I was the address,' Hirsch said, 'and I had only my phone'
Hirsch’s appointment was formal and immediate. A Prime Minister’s Office statement from October 2023 said Netanyahu appointed him as coordinator for the captives and missing and urged the public to direct information through official channels. Hirsch told the Post he accepted the mission while still processing his own recent health battle. Netanyahu asked about his condition, Hirsch said, noting he had completed cancer treatment.
Within hours, he said, the gap between title and capability became painfully clear.
“Then came a flood of calls,” Hirsch recalled. “I had no employees, no phones, no computers, nothing.” He said he began calling friends to volunteer, building a staff from veterans of Israel’s security services and defense industries, while also creating a direct channel to families.
He described his first workspace as a cramped room inside the Prime Minister’s Office compound, roughly two meters by two meters, cleared for him by the prime minister’s military secretary. From there, he said, he began assembling a nationwide apparatus spanning intelligence coordination, negotiation support, public influence efforts, and a system for maintaining regular contact with families.
At its peak, Hirsch estimated, the broader mechanism involved close to 2,000 people, including hundreds working intelligence shifts and a liaison structure that paired each family with both a military and a civilian point of contact. He said his wife also became part of the emergency effort, recruiting volunteers and building early tracking spreadsheets as calls poured into their household.
Hirsch said he declined early requests to publish definitive hostage numbers because the initial chaos blurred key categories, missing persons, confirmed abductees, and victims still awaiting identification. “I didn’t want to say someone is missing when he is actually a hostage,” he said. Only once authorities had a clearer picture did he support releasing firm totals.
A crisis with few precedents
Hirsch framed October 7 as an unprecedented hostage crisis for a modern Western-aligned state, both in scale and complexity. He contrasted it with earlier Israeli cases, including the 1994 kidnapping and killing of soldier Nachshon Wachsman and the years-long saga of Gilad Schalit, abducted in 2006 and released in a 2011 swap. He also referenced earlier unresolved files tied to Gaza, such as the cases of Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul.
“This was a captives and missing event,” Hirsch said, “not a single kidnapping.” He described hostages being held across wide geographic areas in Gaza, under different command structures and physical settings above and below ground, requiring coordination among the IDF, Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), the Mossad (Israel’s national intelligence agency), police, prison authorities, and foreign partners.
He credited Maj.-Gen. (res.) Nitzan Alon, identified in Israeli reporting as a central IDF figure in hostage negotiations and the broader hostage effort, as part of the interagency system he worked alongside.
Why Hirsch believed Israel could reach everyone
Hirsch said his confidence grew during October 2023, rooted in two assessments: the extent to which Hamas viewed hostages as a strategic “asset,” and the operational reality that Israel deployed significant forces inside Gaza.
“Because Hamas sees them as an asset and keeps them,” he said, “it will do everything to know where they are.” He argued that, paradoxically, an organization investing in control and concealment also invests in tracking, logistics, and internal coordination, creating potential intelligence seams for Israel to exploit.
He also drew a distinction between missing-person cases across borders and a hostage search in territory where Israel had an expanding military footprint. “It’s different than missing in Syria,” he said, “or Ron Arad in Lebanon,” referring to the Israeli airman missing since 1986. “We were with a lot of forces and power.”
Hirsch said he told Netanyahu early on that Israel could reach “everyone,” while cautioning that it could take years. “I’m with you until the return of all the hostages home to Israel,” he said he promised publicly.
He also acknowledged the central moral tension of the war. Hostages faced danger from Hamas, from battlefield chaos, and from the risks inherent in rescue attempts. “There was fear hostages would be harmed, as happened,” he said, adding that he based his confidence on what he called professional judgment and situational awareness, not bravado.
'We had operations ready,' Hirsch said, 'and we stopped'
Hirsch said Israel often had partial location intelligence and forces positioned for action, yet chose restraint when success was uncertain.
“Yes,” he said, when asked whether he could speak about rescue efforts that failed or never launched. He described situations where “the forces knew where hostages were,” supported by intelligence and operational capabilities. Still, he said, some missions were canceled because commanders and decision-makers could not reach a confidence threshold.
He said at least one rescue attempt ended with a hostage killed, without providing details. He said other operations were postponed because rescuing a specific hostage could have triggered the death of others held nearby. “The consideration was human life,” Hirsch said.
He estimated that Israel made “many hundreds” of attempts to locate and reach hostages throughout the war, through intelligence collection, operational maneuver, special operations planning, and efforts tied to negotiations. Hirsch reminded that just eight hostages were rescued in special operations, a figure consistent with widely reported accounts of a small number of successful military rescues compared with the larger number freed through deals.
Hirsch also said intelligence was often “good,” sometimes weaker, and never perfect. He claimed Israeli forces avoided strikes and maneuver in areas tied to hostage-location concern, describing selective operational patterns aimed at minimizing risk to captives.
Hirsch rejected the premise that Israel could have secured a deal that returned significantly more hostages alive by offering additional concessions, saying the core obstacle lay in Hamas’s negotiating strategy and objectives.
“No,” he said, when asked that directly.
He argued Hamas treated negotiations as a time-buying tool, constantly shifting demands, pressing for what he described as surrender-like conditions, and using the talks to project Israel as refusing compromise. “Hamas played with negotiations when it had 255 hostages to play with for a decade,” he said. “That’s what it planned.”
Hirsch said Hamas pursued parallel aims during the hostage crisis: preparing future attacks, encouraging violence in the West Bank, and fueling attacks abroad, while amplifying internal Israeli polarization through propaganda. “One of the hardest parts,” he said, “was very effective propaganda, to tear us from within.”
He pointed to the public anguish of hostage families, including those leading high-profile protests, as an emotional terrain Hamas sought to exploit. Hirsch said he did not try to silence demonstrations, yet he repeatedly told families he saw himself as a state representative trying to return their loved ones, in a war the state had already failed to prevent. “I had to explain the considerations of the State of Israel,” he said. “Most of the time, families didn’t accept it.”
Qatar, Egypt, and the US
Hirsch praised US involvement and described it as essential, while portraying the Arab mediators as interest-driven actors rather than neutral brokers.
“America has a decisive role,” he said, expressing gratitude to the US administration and American officials who, he argued, helped sustain the broader diplomatic framework around hostage talks and pressure on Hamas.
He also said Egypt and Qatar “were not classic mediators,” arguing both held strategic interests in Gaza and therefore did not resemble neutral third parties such as Switzerland. Still, he said, Israel had limited alternatives for reaching Hamas through an effective channel.
He described periods where Qatari pressure was “effective” and other periods where it was not, claiming Hamas ultimately “outmaneuvered” mediators by exploiting timing and political constraints.
Hirsch said certain regional shifts narrowed Hamas’s room to maneuver, including the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in October 2024 during Israeli military operations.
Hirsch also said that in September 2024 he went to Washington with a proposal he presented publicly: offer Sinwar safe passage in exchange for demilitarization, reconstruction, “deradicalization,” an end to the war, and the return of all hostages. He said he could not build sufficient diplomatic infrastructure at the time to advance it fully.
Lessons learned: a permanent coordinator, and a policy debate still open
Asked about mistakes, Hirsch said he is still conducting lessons-learned work, including revisions that took place mid-crisis. He described early family-liaison frameworks as improvised and imperfect, then repeatedly adjusted as the war continued. He also described emergency coordination with ministries and the Knesset to build new benefits and support structures for hostage families and returnees.
“There was no playbook,” he said. “You have to invent.”
He supported the idea of a standing national framework for captives and missing, including a permanent coordinator position that exists in peacetime. The role, he argued, should include prevention, messaging, and deterrence, so terror groups understand kidnapping Israelis carries a severe cost.
Hirsch addressed the long-running Israeli policy argument around prisoner exchanges and the recommendations of the Shamgar Commission, which examined prisoner-release decisions after the Schalit deal. He said he is studying the issue and favors defining policy, while also warning against binding future decision-makers too tightly when hostages’ lives are at stake.
He also said he opposed advancing legislation on the death penalty for terrorists while living hostages remained in Gaza, arguing it could have endangered captives. He said Netanyahu backed that position until the hostage crisis reached its endpoint.
'Mixed emotions,' Hirsch said, as the file closes
Despite the operational milestone of recovering Gvili’s remains and closing the list of October 7 captives, Hirsch said the end of the mission left him with a heavy ledger.
He emphasized that many hostages returned dead. “I’m in mixed emotions,” he said. “I’m tormented and in pain.” He described knowing families personally and carrying their stories with him.
For Hirsch, the next chapter extends beyond the hostage file. He spoke about rebuilding Israel’s security capacity, improving compensation for those who serve, investing in education and civic frameworks, and widening national participation, including among communities that have remained outside the core burden of service.
He cast the work as a test of national recovery after October 7. “From the terrible break,” he said, Israel must build its next stage with strength, cohesion, and readiness.