Retired Shin Bet officer Adi Rotem revealed Saturday that he was the negotiator who held direct talks with senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad in 2024, and stressed that the secret channel was approved by “the political echelon.”
The talks, first revealed on Thursday, reportedly helped enable the deal with Hamas in January 2025, during which dozens of both living and slain hostages were freed in small batches in return for boosted humanitarian aid to Gaza and over 1,000 Palestinian security prisoners held in Israeli prisons.
As part of the January 2025 deal, the sides also agreed to hold talks on a second and third phase that would include the return of all hostages, end the war, and ensure a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, but the truce collapsed after the first stage. Last October, another US-backed agreement was reached to end the war that saw Palestinian terrorists release all the remaining hostages.
Rotem told Channel 12 in an interview that it was his idea to approach Hamad, who he noted had played a role in the Shalit deal, the 2011 agreement under which Israel under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu freed 1,027 Palestinian security prisoners, including October 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar, in return for captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been held captive by Hamas for over five years.
