11 days in, hunger strikers unwavering as they highlight plight of Israeli hostages
‘We cannot be, and we are not, a society which is happier killing our enemies than saving our children’ says hunger striker Rabbi Avidan Freedman
Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter
Protesting the ongoing failure to free the Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza from their year-long captivity, a group of activists have gone on hunger strike as part of broader efforts to maintain public attention on the plight of the captives.
Initiated by veteran Israeli anti-war activist Orna Shimoni, 83, there are now 14 activists currently on hunger strike who have been maintaining a vigil outside of the Knesset for the last two weeks during their enforced fast.
“We are on hunger strike to raise the voice of what we believe to be most Israeli citizens that the Israeli government needs to do everything in its power to bring the hostages back now, all of those who are still alive back to their lives and to rehabilitate them, and those who are no longer to proper burial,” said Rabbi Avidan Freedman.
Freedman is currently on day 11 of his hunger strike, while others started later. He and the others do not eat, but drink water and some other liquids to maintain their health.
“I feel strong, I feel fine. Whatever the hostages are going through is much worse,” said the rabbi, an educator and head of the Yanshoof organization, which campaigns against Israeli arms sales to countries with poor human rights records.
Freedman said that bringing the hostages back is critical because it is part of Israel’s founding ethos “to care more about our lives than killing our enemies,” and that this goal must be Israel’s top priority.
“If we turn into a society that cares more about killing enemies than saving lives, the lives of citizens who were abandoned, who the government failed to protect, not only soldiers but citizens taken from their beds, that is a major violation of what I think, and what most Israeli citizens see, as the basic contract between not only any government and its citizens, but the basic ethos of Israeli society,” said the rabbi.
“What gives us power and strength more than military power is our solidarity and our willingness to do for each other and sacrifice for each other, and how we are a family,” he continued, arguing that failing to bring the hostages back would be a “basic violation” of that family.
Addressing claims by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others in the government that it is not Israel but Hamas that has stymied a deal, Freedman insisted that it was the Israeli government that had “torpedoed various opportunities” to come to a hostage release deal with Hamas.
He acknowledged that the Biden administration has made statements that Hamas is refusing to do a deal, but argued that the Palestinian terror group had agreed to the deal laid out by US President Joe Biden on May 27 and that Netanyahu had subsequently insisted on changes.
He also noted that Biden himself has said that Netanyahu was not doing enough to reach a deal.
“It’s quite clear that there are forces within the coalition which are against any deal which includes releasing terrorists, which is every deal,” said Freedman, and accused the prime minister of “playing games” in order to avoid a situation in which his coalition partners topple the government.
“We cannot be, and we are not, a society which is happier killing our enemies than saving our children,” said Freedman, and expressed concern that this week’s ground operation in Lebanon and Tuesday’s Iranian missile attack would send the issue of the hostages to the back of people’s minds.
“They are waiting for us, they have been alive for 361 days of captivity, and they’re praying every day for us to save them.”
It is believed that 97 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 33 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 37 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.
