The prime minister’s special envoy on missing and captured Israeli soldiers, Col. (res.) Lior Lotan, revealed at the annual Herzliya Conference on Sept. 13 that Israel is holding 18 Hamas operatives it detained during the 2014 Operation Protective Edge, as well as the bodies of 19 Hamas members killed in the operation. The information had never before been revealed, and surprisingly, the families of the dead and imprisoned, members of Hamas' military wing, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, have never spoken out on the issue.

Lotan probably divulged this information in the hope that the families in Gaza would pressure Hamas after Israel had done all it could to reach a deal with the organization on the return of the bodies of its soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin and the safe return of three Israeli civilians who had crossed the border into Gaza: Avraham Mengistu, Hisham al-Sayed and Jumaa Ibrahim Abu-Ghanima.

At the Herzliya Conference of the Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Lotan spoke of two Israeli offers rejected by Hamas: exchanging the bodies of Goldin and Shaul in return for the Hamas operatives and bodies, and handing over dozens of Palestinians who had crossed the border from Gaza into Israel in recent years in return for the Israeli civilians being held by Hamas. Lotan claimed, however, that Hamas had set a precondition regarding other Palestinian prisoners, residents of the West Bank not connected in any way to the Gaza Strip or Operation Protective Edge. “Of course, we cannot abide a precondition,” Lotan said.

Al-Monitor has learned that one of the channels Israel used was the same one through which it achieved the October 2011 deal for the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, held captive by Hamas for five years. That deal, which freed some 1,000 jailed Palestinians in exchange for Shalit, was put together by senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad and Israeli peace activist Gershon Baskin. The two maintained a channel of communication with the approval of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that directly involved David Meidan, Netanyahu’s previous envoy on prisoners and missing soldiers.