Hostage’s dad protesting outside Likud event attacked with eggs, berated as ‘cancer’
Apparent activist from ruling party tells father of Liri Albag, one of 5 female troops abducted from IDF base, that ‘Sinwar is funding you’; Likud minister: ‘This isn’t our way’
Eggs were thrown and insults hurled toward the father of a Hamas hostage as he demonstrated Wednesday evening outside a festive event in Netanya hosted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party that was attended by ministers and MKs.
As Eli Albag, father of Liri who has been held by terrorists in the Strip for almost a year, protested as part of his campaign to pressure the government to secure his daughter’s release, unknown assailants threw the eggs, hitting Albag and a nearby police officer.
When Albag confronted the apparent Likud activists, asking whoever threw the eggs to step forward, one of them told him “You’ve made enough noise, be quiet.”
The group also berated Albag and other activists on behalf of the hostages, who have been urging the government to sign a hostage-for-ceasefire deal with Hamas.
“[Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar is funding you,” one was heard saying in video from Netanya.
“You are cancer in the country,” another was said to shout.
Albag then told reporters that he regularly gets threatening messages, is cursed and even beaten due to his struggle to secure the freedom of his daughter.
“It’s one thing to throw at me, I’m used to it… I have very thick skin. But why throw eggs at the police? That disturbed me more,” Albag told the Kan public broadcaster, before right-wing counterprotesters started berating him again on live television and disrupting the broadcast.
לאחר שזרקו ביצים על אלי אלבג, אביה של החטופה לירי ועל השוטרים, אחד מפעילי הליכוד מעז לצעוק על אלבג ״שקט. עשית מספיק רעש״ – אלבג לא מוותר ועונה לו. וגם ברגעים האלו אלבג דואג לשוטרים וביקש מאותם פעילים, לזרוק עליו את הביצים ולא על השוטרים שעמדו לצידו. ערב עצוב, אין מה לומר pic.twitter.com/qGAe4iRshI
— Yollan cohen יולן כהן (@yollancohen) September 25, 2024
Likud MK Eli Dallal, who was at the event in Netanya, said President Isaac Herzog phoned him asking to speak with Albag, and added that eggs were also thrown at him.
“I don’t know who threw the eggs at us. I condemn all violence and it doesn’t matter from which side it is,” Dallal was quoted as saying by the Ynet news site. “During my speech at the [Likud] branch, I said there won’t be total victory without the return of all the hostages.”
Likud MK Miki Zohar also denounced the harassment of Albag, writing on X that “this isn’t our way or the way we want to go.”
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “to denounce and eject those responsible from the party, and apologize to Eli Albag.”
Liri Albag, one of five female soldiers taken hostage at the Nahal Oz base on October 7, is among the 97 hostages abducted by Hamas during the terror onslaught who 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.
