Haim Rubinstein

That was what people shouted at me for, "Release the hostages, this will all be over." According to recent reporting from Haaretz, on the night of October 7th, Hamas communicated via the Qataris and via the PA that they were prepared to release all civilian hostages, all elderly people, and all children, uh, how they define civilians, but Israel refused to speak with them or engage with them.

Haim Rubinstein, who was the spokesman for the Hostages' Families Forum, has also said, and I quote, "They later found out that Hamas had offered on October 9th or 10th to release all the civilian hostages in exchange for the IDF not entering the strip, but the government rejected the offer." From the beginning, it looks like the Israeli government didn't actually prioritize getting those hostages released.

Again, look, I wasn't attending the sessions of the government and the reports of the discussion-

But from what you've seen, the publicly available evidence.