Behind their backs – Netanyahu conducted secret talks with Hamas in 2014 without security establishment’s knowledge

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held direct contacts and negotiations with Hamas behind the backs of the security establishment, a recent report in Maariv claims. 

The secret contacts between Netanyahu and Hamas took place during Operation Protective Edge in July and August of 2014, according to the report. 

Prime Minister Netanyahu conducted the secret talks through an Israeli businessman, Shlomi Fogel, who was an associate of Netanyahu. 

A report by business daily The Marker in 2025 claimed that Fogel also played a direct role in coordinating the transfer of Qatari cash to the Gaza Strip following Operation Protective Edge, due to his contacts with Qatari diplomats, including Mohammad al-Emadi, who oversaw the cash transfers and reconstruction projects in Gaza for the Gulf state. 

In a 2018 Globes interview, Fogel admitted having discussions with Hamas officials despite distrusting their intentions. 

“When I talk to Hamas people, I tell them: I am willing to do this not because I love you, I know you want to kill us. I am only doing this so that there will be peace,” Fogel said at the time. 

The 2014 discussions were unusual, not only because they were direct contacts between the prime minister and Hamas, at a time when official negotiations were conducted through third parties, but also because Netanyahu kept them a secret even from top security officials, the Maariv report claims. 

At that time, Israel usually conducted negotiations with Egypt's help, later pivoting to Qatar. 

In fact, Netanyahu had sent a security delegation to Egypt, including Major Generals Yoav Mordechai, Nimrod Sheffer, and Amos Gilad, as well as Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen, for negotiations. 

That delegation conducted negotiations for a ceasefire through the Egyptians, with representatives of Hamas and the other factions in the Gaza Strip. 

However, Netanyahu also conducted secret negotiations through Fogel, with input from Yossi Cohen, then Netanyahu's National Security Advisor.

Cohen would later be appointed head of Mossad, where he would oversee the operation to extract Iranian nuclear files from Tehran. 

This time, Fogel had direct contact with Ghazi Hamed by phone, then a deputy minister in the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip. 

More recently, Hamed was part of the Hamas delegation negotiating the October 2025 ceasefire and hostage release. He was in the Hamas meeting which Israel unsuccessfully targeted in Doha, Qatar in September 2025. 

The negotiations took place in parallel with negotiations in Egypt conducted by the heads of the security establishment, but without their knowledge. 

Those negotiations did not achieve a breakthrough; however, the defense establishment discovered the secret back channel involving Fogel during that time, Maariv reported. 

When confronted, Netanyahu reportedly denied any knowledge of the channel and instructed the defense establishment to question Fogel. He was called in for questioning, warned, and asked to stop the independent negotiations. 

However, when defense officials later discovered that the negotiations were continuing, Fogel was called in for questioning a second time. This time, Fogel admitted that he was acting with the knowledge and authority of Prime Minister Netanyahu and that he was receiving messages from Cohen. 

These contacts were happening without the knowledge of the security establishment, neither the IDF Chief of Staff, the Chief of Military Intelligence, the head of the Mossad or other security officials – and without the knowledge of the security delegation, which flew back and forth to Cairo for weeks. 

Maariv correspondent Ben Caspit said a former senior official in the National Intelligence Organization shared the astonishment in the heads of the security establishment when they discovered the direct secret channel with Hamas. 

“The people just dropped it. You have to understand, these are not the days when Netanyahu declared open war on the entire security establishment; this was 12 years ago, he appointed all these people, he sent them on a mission, he dispatched them to conduct indirect negotiations through the Egyptians with Hamas, and at the same time he directly activated a private businessman,” the official told him. “Today I see this as writing that was already on the wall back then.” 

In a statement released Thursday, the Prime Minister’s Office denied the report.

“These are false briefings by political elements trying to harm the prime minister,” the PMO said in a statement.