Former US official says Israeli demands made Gaza deal 'impossible for another six months'

A former senior US official has accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of delaying a captive exchange and ceasefire deal in Gaza in 2024 by "so many of his own conditions", which prevented an agreement for "another six months". Phil Gordon, who served as national security adviser to former US Vice President Kamala Harris from March 2022 to January 2025, made the allegations in a post on X on Saturday. “Netanyahu instead added so many of his own conditions - against the advice of his own security chiefs - that the deal became impossible for another six months,” Gordon wrote. He said nearly 9,000 more Palestinians were killed in that period and more Israeli captives died. Gordon said the added Israeli demands included keeping forces along Gaza’s entire border with Egypt and a new mechanism to screen Palestinians returning north. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Both were dropped in the deal finally concluded in January 2025. “I would say most of my former colleagues think that President Biden should have put more pressure on Israel to conduct the war differently and end it sooner, and few think that the biggest mistake Biden made was to show daylight with Israel,” he wrote. His comments follow a Channel 12 interview with Avi Gil, Netanyahu’s military secretary until May 2024, who alleged that Netanyahu passed up chances to bring captives home alive because of the risk to his political career. Asked whether some could have been saved, he replied: “We could have.” Gil also claimed Netanyahu was repeatedly warned before 7 October 2023, and that staff tampered with his phone records. “Over time, gaps developed between the recommendations of the defence authorities and maybe even the prime minister’s own wishes,” on the one hand, “and the decisions or recommendations of his ministers,” he said. Netanyahu’s former aide alleges attempt to alter 7 October records Read More » In another allegation, Gil said that Netanyahu had asked him to prepare a document outlining a possible prisoner agreement in 2024, but later ordered him not to present it to ministers after finance minister Bezalel Smotrich threatened to bring down the government if a deal was reached. Netanyahu denied the accusations, calling Gil's comments "an attempt to obscure the simple and painful truth about his failure". Netanyahu's Likud party also dismissed the wider allegations as “part of the false and politically motivated propaganda campaign against Prime Minister Netanyahu and Likud”. Gil also accused Netanyahu's chief of staff, Tzachi Braverman, of seeking to change the time of a phone call between Gil and the prime minister on the morning of 7 October. According to Gil, a stenographer at the prime minister's office told him in January 2024 that Braverman had ordered her to change the time of their first recorded secure-line call from 6:40 am to 6:29 am, when the Hamas-led attack began. "She came into my office, closed the door and told me everything," he said of the stenographer. "If I remember correctly, the change [to the minutes] was carried out by the chief of staff," added Gil. "Those are the facts. They cannot be disputed." Copyright © 2014 - 2026 . Middle East Eye. All rights reserved. Only England and Wales jurisdiction apply in all legal matters. Middle East Eye ISSN 2634-2456