Hostage Nimrod Cohen’s family tries pressure, protest and petition to get their son home
Family of soldier who was dragged from his tank on Oct. 7 accuses the gov’t of continued abandonment of the hostages; a newly freed captive has said Cohen was alive 8 months ago
Jessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel's culture and lifestyles editor, covers the Sabra scene from south to north and back to the center
As the government demanded Tuesday that the hostages held by the Hamas terror group be freed by Saturday, Yehuda Cohen, father of hostage Nimrod Cohen, was in Washington, DC, on his fifth US mission to try and save his son.
Nimrod Cohen, now 20, is not on the list of the remaining 17 hostages to be released in the first stage of the current Gaza ceasefire. As a soldier, he will be one of the last of the remaining hostages to be freed from Hamas captivity.
“I’m meeting with the Republicans, with the Democrats, with the press, with everyone,” Yehuda Cohen told The Times of Israel. “And when Nimrod is released, we’ll continue all of it until every hostage is home, until it’s all over.”
Cohen still thinks and hopes that the first phase of the ceasefire will continue, although he’s certain it will become problematic in the planned second phase.
“It will depend upon how much pressure [US President Donald] Trump puts on [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu,” he contended.
For now, though, Cohen, his wife Viki, their eldest son Yotam, and Nimrod’s twin Romi, will do everything they can to get Nimrod home.
On Sunday, after three more hostages were released home to Israel, the Cohens and Einav Zangauker, the mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, petitioned the High Court of Justice, demanding it order the government to publish in full the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal agreed upon with Hamas.
The full details of the second phase of the hostage deal have remained confidential and the Israeli government does not want to reveal it, argued Cohen.
“Our goal, based on Prime Minister Netanyahu’s experience of torpedoing deals, is to make sure that Netanyahu does not again create options for failing and torpedoing the second phase of the deal,” said Cohen, referring to the phase in which his son and Matan Zangauker are included.
It’s no secret that Cohen is not a fan of the prime minister. He’s made that clear now for months, as he joined several hostage families, including Zangauker, in regular anti-government protests held on Tel Aviv’s Begin Road on Saturdays, repeatedly blaming the prime minister for the horrors of the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023.
Nimrod was a gunner in a tank that day, as he and his crew attempted to stem the tide of Hamas terrorists invading the Nahal Oz army base, where they were one of two tanks stationed between Kibbutz Nir Oz and Kibbutz Nirim.
Nimrod, who was 19 when he was captured by Hamas, was in a tank along the border with Cpt. Omer Neutra, Sgt. Shaked Dahan and Sgt. Oz Daniel. Neutra was the tank commander, Dahan the driver, Cohen the gunner and Daniel the loader.
During the assault on southern Israel, their tank was attacked by Hamas terrorists with RPG fire and explosive devices. All four were then abducted to Gaza. Infamous footage from the attack showed Palestinians in civilian clothing standing on and around their tank while it was wreathed in smoke and flames, and the soldiers being dragged out by Hamas terrorists.
Since then, the IDF has learned that Neutra, Dahan and Daniel were all killed, with their bodies held by Hamas. Nimrod was also taken hostage, but there have been several signs of life from him.
The most recent sign of life was received from a recently freed hostage who last saw Cohen eight months ago. But there is no information on his status since that time.
“We’re passing time because every day lasts forever,” said Viki Cohen, who stopped working in August to dedicate herself full-time to the struggle for Nimrod. “We’re waiting for the first stage to finish to get to the second stage.”
While the Cohens wait for Nimrod to return to the family home on a quiet street in Rehovot, they protest, each in their way.
Yehuda and his eldest son, Yotam, are at Tel Aviv’s Begin Road protests on Saturday nights, while Viki and Nimrod’s twin, Romi, can often be found at the more solemn Hostages Square rally and at Shift 101 — white-wearing, mostly silent rallies held several times a week in front of public institutions.
Yehuda Cohen, an algorithm engineer at Applied Materials who asked his colleagues not to ask him about Nimrod when he’s able to come to work, has been traveling the world on missions, often with his elder son, Yotam.
He spent several weeks in December and January traveling to Paris, Brazil, and The Hague.
Cohen met in January with Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, to discuss issuing an arrest warrant against Netanyahu to pressure him into implementing the hostage-ceasefire agreement with Hamas in full.
“People didn’t like it,” said Cohen, speaking in his living room last Thursday. “I had a simple message, ‘You want to investigate our prime minister? Please go right ahead.'”
Cohen headed to the US again on Sunday, with plans to follow the messaging of Trump, who Cohen noted already showed his commitment to the hostages before his January 20 inauguration.
“There’s a reason to thank Trump,” said Viki Cohen, who supports her husband’s more political statements but says she has her way of doing things. “In the moment of reckoning, he did it [got the hostage deal signed], and after so much waiting.”
No matter what happens, though, the Cohens will always point a finger of blame at Netanyahu.
“I’ve always seen Bibi as a problem,” said Cohen, who has Israeli flags propped up near his front door, which have been held in the weekly protests against the judicial overhaul proposed by Netanyahu’s right-wing government when it came into power more than two years ago. “He was at one time seen somehow as the responsible adult in the room, but [the judicial overhaul] was the trigger, I saw the danger in him, and then his policies brought this disaster to my family.”
As the Cohens anticipated the fourth release of hostages on Saturday, Viki Cohen remarked that while it’s been thrilling to see the hostages come home and to watch their reunions with their loved ones, it’s an experience mixed with much disappointment, pressure and worry for her.
“I want to be in the same place, to hold my own son,” she said. “We’re lacking certainty.”
Yehuda Cohen feels certain that Nimrod will come home, that he will hug him. He believes that Hamas has an interest in keeping the hostages alive, perhaps even more so than the Israeli government. He knows it’s a protracted process.
“To get to Nimrod, there’s a list and it has to progress,” he said. “We know what happened back in November 2023 when Israel said Hamas gave the wrong list and then [the ceasefire] was all over. Bibi looks for the spot where he can torpedo it all.”
Watching the weekly return of the hostages each week feels a bit like bingeing on a Netflix series, said Yotam Cohen.
“It’s like watching a reality TV show,” said Yotam Cohen. “We all watch it, and deserve to be a part of it after everything that so many Israelis have gone through in this struggle, but I’m jealous of them.”
He thinks about the other hostages, like Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who he knew from his army service, and who was murdered by his captors along with five other hostages in late August.
“They could have been at home,” he said, also mentioning Ron Sherman, a soldier taken hostage and killed while in captivity. “They could have come back to their families. It’s the crime of the government that they’re not coming back.”
