Ex-Israeli negotiator says 2025 hostage deal was possible a year earlier

Retired Maj. Gen. Nitzan Alon, the army's early hostage-negotiations chief, said Israel could have reached its October 2025 Hamas deal perhaps a year earlier without major implication for other war goals. He spoke on a Washington Institute webcast marking three years since the Oct. 7, 2023 attack. That deal freed 20 Israeli captives and nearly 2,000 Palestinians.