JERUSALEM 

Any hostage deal will be more advantageous for Israel than Hamas, the former head of the Israeli army’s Operations Division said Sunday. 

“Only a hostage swap deal can return the hostages,” Major-General Israel Ziv said in an interview with Radio 103fm.

“There is no greater picture of victory than this for Israel at home and abroad, and for everyone searching for victory in the war,” he added.

He said any hostage swap deal must be part of a comprehensive agreement to end the Gaza war.

“This time, it is more in Israel's interest than Hamas,” he noted.

Ziv criticized the Israeli government’s policy of continuing its war on the Gaza Strip.

"We're facing an existential threat in the north,” he said, in reference to cross-border attacks with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

Tension has flared along the border between Lebanon and Israel amid intermittent exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and Hezbollah, in the deadliest clashes since the two sides fought a full-scale war in 2006.

The border tension comes as Israel continued its brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7 Hamas attack despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire.

More than 37,000 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children, and nearly 84,500 others injured, according to local health authorities.

Eight months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water, and medicine.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered Tel Aviv to immediately halt its operation in the southern city of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.

* Writing by Ikram Kouachi