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It was heartbreaking for Dickmann to hear. His cousin, Carmel Gat, was 39 when she was taken hostage — along with about 250 others — last Oct. 7, in the Hamas-led attack on Israel that killed around 1,200 people.
After Netanyahu said no to the possible ceasefire deal in July, Gat was killed in Gaza along with five other Israeli hostages in August. Hamas later took responsibility for their killings.
Since July, thousands more Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military in Gaza — bringing the death toll up to more than 43,000 according to the ministry of health — and several more hostages have been confirmed dead as well.
“It was very clear from him that the reason why we didn’t take this deal was not military, it wasn’t diplomatic — I think it was a political reason,” Dickmann said, referring to Netanyahu using it for his own political gain “That meant that my cousin, who was alive at the beginning of July, stayed in captivity and was murdered just six weeks later.”
Dickmann says Gallant told them that the Israeli military has now accomplished all it can in Gaza.
“What he said is there’s only so much you can do with force, and they’ve done it,” he recalled.
Dickmann paraphrased Gallant’s words to them: “‘We don’t have any more rivals, any more enemies that we can even kill right now, because they’re all dead. We killed all of them.’ As the Minister of Defense, he said, ‘I did my job’.” Gallant was referring to a series of high level Hamas leaders who have been killed by the Israeli military, including leader Yahya Sinwar in October.
NPR obtained a transcript and listened to a recording of the meeting with Gallant and was able to verify what Gil Dickmann told us.
NPR also reached out to both Gallant and the Prime Minister’s office about these claims. Neither responded.