Israeli television on Wednesday reported that November’s hostage-truce deal collapsed after a week because Hamas — instead of the 10 living hostages it was supposed to release on the eighth day of the deal — offered to return seven bodies and three living captives, who were two men and one woman. In fact, the report quoted a senior Israeli security source saying, Israel knew that the women among the seven purportedly dead hostages were alive and assessed that Hamas would immediately kill them if Israel accepted the changed terms.

The report was included in a lengthy story on Channel 12 that alleged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has consistently acted since December to “torpedo” a further possible hostage deal with Hamas for political reasons — a claim that was immediately and forcefully denied by the premier’s office.

In its report, Channel 12 news blamed Hamas, not Netanyahu, for the collapse of the seven-day ceasefire deal that enabled the release of 81 Israeli hostages and 24 foreign nationals in late November.

It specified that among the seven hostages who Hamas claimed were dead was Noa Argamani, who was rescued by the IDF along with three other living hostages in June. And it quoted the senior security official stressing that if Israel had accepted Hamas’s changed offer, the terror group would have simply shot the living female hostages it was claiming were dead.