'Only one man can stop this'

Israeli hostage negotiator says Trump alone may make Netanyahu pull soldiers out of Gaza

- BY CHRIS HUGHES

ONE of Israel's key hostage negotiators has revealed Hamas would have released its captives in three weeks if the Israeli Defence Forces had withdrawn from Gaza.

Peace campaigner Gershon Baskin had direct talks with Hamas on stopping the war within days of the attacks of October 7, 2023.

He said a key figure in the organisation told him: “We're ready to give [the hostages] back”, in return for IDF withdrawal and the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.

And the IDF told him they could have been out of the Gaza Strip within three weeks.

But the three-week deal fell through when Israeli troops surrounded the city of Gaza and Hamas froze talks of a prisoner exchange.

Gershon claims Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants troops to remain in Gaza to please his right-wing supporters.

Because of this, he says just one man can stop the war - US President Donald Trump.

As the death toll in Gaza passes 60,000, there are rising fears of famine in the Strip.

Gershon said: “It is a genocide. There's a difference between the Holocaust and what's going on in Gaza.

WATER