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Phil Gordon, a senior official who served in former US President Joe Biden's administration, said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blocked a prisoner exchange deal accepted by Hamas in July 2024, prolonging the war in Gaza by six months. Writing on the social media platform X, Gordon pushed back against efforts by Netanyahu's supporters to justify the prime minister's handling of the war using a new book and interviews by former Middle East coordinator Brett McGurk.

Gordon said McGurk's account is a valuable testimony but not conclusive evidence, and that many former colleagues believed Biden should have pressed Israel harder to end the war sooner. He argued that even McGurk's account shows freeing captives was not among Netanyahu's priorities, and that US pressure did work at times, citing Biden's call to Netanyahu after Israeli strikes killed World Central Kitchen workers.

Gordon said the book omits a key development on July 4, 2024, when Hamas accepted the basic framework and Biden pressed Netanyahu to finalize an agreement. Instead, he said, Netanyahu introduced new terms against the advice of his own security chiefs, delaying a deal by six months, during which he said about 9,000 more Palestinians and several Israeli captives died. Those conditions, later dropped in the January 2025 agreement, were designed to keep Israeli forces inside Gaza. Gordon accused Netanyahu of prioritizing "total victory" and preserving his coalition, calling his conduct of the war and its humanitarian fallout "catastrophic" and damaging to Israel's standing and its ties with Washington.

Gordon concluded that no version of the story exonerates Netanyahu. Meanwhile, Israeli attacks continue nearly a year into a ceasefire, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which reported 1,471 Palestinians killed and 5,189 wounded since the truce took effect, with the overall toll since October 2023 reaching 74,254 dead and 175,306 injured.

Key Takeaways

• Phil Gordon said Netanyahu's added conditions delayed a July 2024 Hamas-accepted deal by six months.
• He argued most former Biden officials wanted stronger US pressure on Israel to end the war sooner.
• Gaza's Health Ministry reports 74,254 Palestinians killed since October 2023.