Hostage families said holding meetings to push for unity government to seal Gaza deal
After Herzog’s call for lawmakers to join forces to free Hamas captives, report says activists talking to coalition and opposition parties in effort to form broad leadership
Some families of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip are reportedly mobilizing in support of a unity government, a day after President Isaac Herzog said the “political system must come together with all its might” to bring the abductees home.
According to a Channel 12 news report on Tuesday, the family representatives have recently held meetings with lawmakers from the opposition Yesh Atid and National Unity parties, along with members of the coalition’s far-right Otzma Yehudit, ultra-Orthodox Shas, and even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud.
The meetings took place amid concern among the families that the government will be expanded for political reasons, the report said, rather than to achieve the goal of freeing the 97 hostages kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 who are still held in Gaza.
“Don’t play tricks on us. Don’t set up a fake unity government that will thwart a deal, but rather a ‘deal government’ that in the end will also lead to true unity in the nation,” Sharon Sharabi, whose brothers Eli and Yossi were kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, was quoted as saying in the report.
Yossi was confirmed dead by the Israel Defense Forces in January, while Eli is believed to be alive and still held in the Gaza Strip.
Also calling for unity on Tuesday, Rabbi Elhanan Danino, whose son Ori Danino was kidnapped on October 7 and executed by Hamas last month, told the crowd at a rally in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square that the fringes of society must not be allowed to divide the “mostly connected, loving, and united” public.
“All of Israel are brothers. We may wear different clothes, but we all came from the same father and the same mother,” he said. “Let us not allow anyone to divide us.”
Danino also shared this sentiment directly with Netanyahu when the premier and his wife Sara visited the family home to pay their respects during the traditional seven-day mourning period.
“You people on high have to stop – stop! – dealing with nonsense and stirring up fights and disagreement. Without unity, we don’t deserve this country; there will be no rebuilding without this land,” Danino was heard telling Netanyahu in recordings broadcast from the visit.
The bodies of Danino and five other hostages — Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Alex Lobanov, Carmel Gat, and Almog Sarusi — who were all kidnapped alive on October 7, were recovered by the IDF from a tunnel in southern Gaza’s Rafah on August 31, a day or two after they were executed.
The Channel 12 report also noted assessments that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar views internal division within Israeli society — such as the mass protests in 2023 over the government’s judicial overhaul and since October 7 over the hostages — as an advantage for the terror group.
The families were not the only ones appearing to rally to Herzog’s call to unity, with Immigration and Absorption Minister Ofir Sofer of the far-right Religious Zionism party saying on Tuesday that due to the challenges posed by the current conflict, “we will be required to make dramatic decisions for Israel” and asserting that now was “the time to join forces and know how to act together.”
The call also resonated with MK Matan Kahana of the centrist National Unity party, who told the network that “what Israel needs now is a broad unity government that relies on the Zionist and moderate forces in Israeli society.”
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party, however, argued that Herzog’s statement was “an irresponsible call that collaborates with Hamas propaganda and the blood libel of the extreme left.”
Channel 12 reported on Tuesday that Herzog had been holding talks with politicians on both sides of the aisle to push for unity, and quoted a Shas official as stating that “there is a will and there is support for a unity government.”
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, for his part, has offered to enter the government in place of Netanyahu’s far-right allies to provide a “safety net” to the government by replacing Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich if they leave the government over the hostage deal.
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.
Sam Sokol contributed to this report.
