AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): According to Maariv, Netanyahu conducted direct negotiations with Hamas without informing the security institutions, and these negotiations took place in July and August 2014, concurrent with Operation Protective Edge in Gaza.
While an Israeli security delegation headed by senior officials of this regime was negotiating through Egyptian mediation for a ceasefire with Hamas and other Palestinian groups, Netanyahu had separately and directly activated another channel.
According to this report, Shlomo Fogel, a businessman close to Netanyahu, was tasked with establishing contact with Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip.
These contacts were conducted by phone and continued for several weeks; during this time, Netanyahu determined the direction of the negotiations, and Yossi Cohen, the then-head of the National Security Council, drafted the messages sent.
Ben Kaspit, a military correspondent for Maariv, claimed that Israeli security institutions, upon learning of this secret channel, confronted Netanyahu about why direct negotiations with Hamas were being conducted without their knowledge.
Netanyahu initially denied this and ordered Fogel to cease his activities, but it later became clear that this businessman was operating with the knowledge and permission of senior officials.
This report also described this episode as a sign of long-standing disagreements between Netanyahu and the security institutions of the Zionist regime.
According to Maariv, one security official at the time described this incident as a "turning point" and a sign of a process that, years later, led to a broader confrontation between Netanyahu and Israel's security establishment.
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