In Knesset, Likud MK shouts at hostage’s father over deal: ‘Your son will be stuck in Gaza’
Eliyahu Revivo assails Yehuda Cohen, whose son Nimrod has been a Hamas captive since October 7, 2023, for accusing Netanyahu of ‘war crimes’ against Israelis and Palestinians

Likud MK Eliyahu Revivo shouted at the father of hostage Nimrod Cohen during a Knesset committee meeting Monday, prompting the forum’s chair to call a break until emotions cooled.
During a stormy session of the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, Yehuda Cohen said he was willing to go to the International Criminal Court and say that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was responsible for “war crimes” against not only Palestinians but also Israelis.
He was referring to the international arrest warrants issued by the court against Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes in Gaza, where the hostages abducted from Israel have been held since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught.
Revivo, in response, screamed at Cohen told that his remarks were “contemptible” and that his pressuring the government to sign a hostage release deal would instead leave his son languishing in captivity for years.
At the meeting, Cohen noted that 400 soldiers have been killed fighting in Gaza. He said, “If these [ICC] arrest warrants can make Netanyahu abandon his personal interests and make a deal including the very last hostage, then that is what I will do.”
Cohen said he was making the statement as the father of a soldier held hostage in Gaza who also has a daughter serving in the IDF and another son who is an officer in the reserves.

He accused the government of being beholden to the extremist ideology of some of its member parties that seek to establish Israeli settlements in Gaza, including committee chairman MK Simcha Rothman’s Religious Zionism party.
In his remarks, he accused the government of “a murderous ideology,” “fascism,” and “treason.”
“The government and the coalition that supports it have betrayed Israel,” he said.
It was at that point that Revivo interrupted Cohen, pointing a finger at him and shouting, “Your contemptible words are condemning your son to the Hamas dungeons for many more years. Who do you think you are?”
After chair Rothman told Revivo to contain himself, the MK shouted at him too: “Quiet! Don’t tell me ‘no.’ You aren’t the boss here.”
Rothman then called for a break in the proceedings.
Rothman later told Cohen that while he empathized with his grief and therefore “will not judge you, I ask that you take into consideration also those people for whom it is difficult to hear such things.”
Merav Svirsky, whose parents were killed on October 7 and whose brother is a hostage, retorted to Rothman, “You say that an MK can’t absorb hard remarks. Yehuda is permitted to say what he thinks because his son is a hostage in mortal danger. You are confused, and it is unacceptable for you to ask him to use gentler words.”
“MKs are also human beings and they have family members who are hostages or who lost their lives on the battlefield, who are fighting at this moment and endangering their lives to save the hostages,” Rothman responded. “In order to hear from more families in an organized manner, even difficult things should be said in a way that enables them to be heard.”
Nimrod Cohen, a soldier then aged 19, was among 251 people taken hostage to Gaza on October 7, when thousands of Hamas terrorists streamed across the border into Israel and butchered some 1,200 people. He was abducted from the Nahal Oz military post.
Family members of hostages have been a constant fixture during the war at Knesset committee meetings, where they have pleaded for a ceasefire deal with Hamas that would include the release of their loved ones.
The meetings have often become heated, and Rothman himself has clashed with hostage families. At the beginning of the month, he aborted a committee meeting due to a spat with families of hostages.

Monday’s disruption came amid reports that Israel and Hamas were on the verge of signing an internationally mediated deal for a truce that would include the release of some, but not necessarily all, of the October 7 hostages, of whom 94 are still in captivity.
Critics of Netanyahu have accused him of stalling on signing a deal to free all of the hostages and bring home the remains of those who have died because Hamas is demanding in return a complete end to the war, something the coalition’s far-right parties have said they would bring down the government to stop.
The three-phased deal currently being negotiated would see dozens of hostages released in a first step in return for hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners held in Israel. The second and third steps would be fully negotiated later on, leading to fears among some families that some hostages could be left behind indefinitely.