Retired Shin Bet officer Adi Rotem revealed Saturday that he was the negotiator who held direct talks with senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad in 2024, and stressed that the secret channel was approved by “the political echelon.”

The talks, first revealed on Thursday, reportedly helped enable the deal with Hamas in January 2025, during which dozens of both living and slain hostages were freed in small batches in return for boosted humanitarian aid to Gaza and over 1,000 Palestinian security prisoners held in Israeli prisons.

As part of the January 2025 deal, the sides also agreed to hold talks on a second and third phase that would include the return of all hostages, end the war, and ensure a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, but the truce collapsed after the first stage. Last October, another US-backed agreement was reached to end the war that saw Palestinian terrorists release all the remaining hostages.

Rotem told Channel 12 in an interview that it was his idea to approach Hamad, who he noted had played a role in the Shalit deal, the 2011 agreement under which Israel under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu freed 1,027 Palestinian security prisoners, including October 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar, in return for captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been held captive by Hamas for over five years.

“I understood that if there was an address, he was the right address. Ghazi Hamad was somebody known to us from the past… He was sufficiently senior, and shrewd, had access to the entire [Hamas] leadership. I was certainly not naive about him, but there was something about him that said it might be possible to have this discussion with him.”

Rotem said he suggested approaching Hamad to then Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, who obtained the necessary approvals from the political leadership.

The direct contacts were approved by Netanyahu, the war cabinet and security cabinet, according to Thursday’s report. At the time, an official Israeli negotiating team was publicly known to be holding indirect mediated talks with Hamas via the United States, Egypt and Qatar.

Bar was booted from the negotiating team by Netanyahu in February 2025. Rotem, a veteran Shin Bet official, apparently retired from the Shin Bet at around this time.

Netanyahu has not commented on the 2024 Hamas talks, but denied a report, published earlier on Thursday, that he oversaw secret talks with Hamas in 2014 via his business associate........

© The Times of Israel