Netanyahu says returning of soldiers’ remains ‘inseparable’ from agreement with Hamas

Speaking to Israel’s Army Radio, premier slams gag order hovering over Harpaz Affair

Israeli incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke Tuesday with Israel’s Army Radio, covering several topics ahead of the upcoming elections on March 2, including talks with Hamas and what that would entail.

The premier said that if an agreement would be reached with the terrorist group, returning the remains of Israeli soldiers — believed to be held in Gaza — would be “an inseparable part of it.”

Soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin were killed during Operation Protective Edge in 2014 and since then have been held captive.

Referring to a legal case involving Israel’s Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit and former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi, Netanyahu slammed the decision to censor tapes recording the two.

“It is appropriate to publish all the Ashkenazi-Mandelblit tapes,” Netanyahu told Army Radio. “The gag order needs to be lifted before the elections. That’s a demand by me and the Likud [party]. There are tapes there that even myself, in my stature, did not know of.”

The tapes Netanyahu referred to relates to the so-called “Harpaz Affair,” when Ashkenazi was Israel’s military chief of staff and Mandelblit was the chief military lawyer in 2010. The two conversed on the matter, allegedly concerned about their connection to the affair.

Cases against the both of them were eventually closed but the recordings were never aired, until parts of them were published by Hebrew media earlier this week.

The attorney general indicted Netanyahu on charges of bribery, fraud and public breach of trust in November 2019. Gabi Ashkenazi is a prominent member of Netanyahu’s key political faction rival, the centrist Blue & White alliance, lead by Benny Gantz.