Lawmakers slam Arab MK for saying he’s ‘happy for release of hostages and prisoners’

Likud minister: Ayman Odeh ‘belongs in prison, not in the Knesset’; Otzma Yehudit MK, who resigned from government Sunday, says he’ll gather signatures to oust Hadash-Taal leader

Hadash head Ayman Odeh speaks during a plenum session at the Knesset in Jerusalem, December 18, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
Hadash head Ayman Odeh speaks during a plenum session at the Knesset in Jerusalem, December 18, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Hadash-Ta’al chair Ayman Odeh drew outrage from lawmakers across the political spectrum Sunday after saying he was “happy for the release of the hostages and prisoners” as part of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

“Now we must free both peoples from the yoke of occupation. We were all born free,” the longtime leader of the country’s main Arab political bloc posted on X, as three Israeli women who were kidnapped by terrorists during Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre were released from the Gaza Strip after over 15 months in captivity.

The first phase of the three-phase hostage-ceasefire deal provides for a total of 33 captives to be released over 42 days in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, including many serving life sentences for deadly terror attacks and murders.

Otzma Yehudit’s Yitzhak Wasserlauf, who tendered his resignation along with the rest of the far-right party on Sunday morning in protest of the deal with Hamas, said he would gather signatures to oust Odeh from the Knesset over his comments.

“At this time, when the entire Israeli nation — supporters and opponents of the deal alike — are weeping with excitement over the return of Romi, Emily and Doron, terrorist supporter Ayman Odeh is comparing vile murderers to our kidnapped daughters,” Wasserlauf wrote on X.

“On Tuesday, when I return to the Knesset, I will act to get the Knesset members to sign a petition to oust Odeh. He should be thrown out of the Knesset immediately!”

Hamas terrorists hand over hostages abducted during the October 7, 2023, massacre in southern Israel, to members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), as part of a ceasefire and a hostages-prisoners deal, in Gaza City, January 19, 2025 (Reuters)

“Anyone who rejoiced over the release of child-murdering terrorists belongs in prison, not in the Knesset,” Culture Minister Miki Zohar wrote.

“Comparing hostages who were snatched from their beds and held in harsh conditions to the scum of the earth… exposes the hypocrisy and disgustingness of those who make this sick comparison,” Likud MK Eliyahu Revivo tweeted.

“Free us from you and your ilk,” Religious Zionism MK Ohad Tal added.

“Ayman Odeh proves once again that he is Hamas’s spokesman in the Knesset,” Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman said. “Whoever compares our hostages to murderous terrorists should go to Gaza with them.”

Among the Palestinians to go free under the deal with Hamas are 737 jailed detainees and security prisoners, some of whom are serving life sentences for murder.

They include members of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Palestinian Authority’s ruling Fatah movement, along with women and minors being held in Israeli jails. Some prisoners were released in 2011 in return for captive soldier Gilad Shalit later and re-arrested.

Palestinians celebrate a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel in the West Bank city of Beitunia, January 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

From the political center, Yesh Atid MK Meirav Cohen wrote, “How dare you compare hostages who were kidnapped from a party, in their pajamas, from their beds, and in protecting our borders so that all of us — including you — can live in security, to despicable terrorists, including murderers and rapists?? People like you do more damage to Arab society than anyone else.”

MK Yaron Levi, also of Yesh Atid, responded, “This is what reality looks like through the eyes of a terrorist.”

Odeh is no stranger to verbal scuffles with his fellow Knesset members.

Last month, MKs from Otzma Yehudit petitioned for Odeh to be disciplined after he appeared to justify some of Hamas’s actions on October 7, 2023, when thousands of terrorists burst across the border into Israel by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages, mostly civilians, many amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.

“Kidnapping a one-year-old baby, an 88-year-old woman, murdering people who are dancing — this is primarily a very, very, very deep moral violation. At the same time, I believe that every struggling people has the right to fight the occupier, I believe that,” the Arab MK had said during a Knesset discussion in December.

Former Hadash chairman Ayman Odeh speaks during a peace conference at the Yad Eliyahu Arena in Tel Aviv, July 1, 2024. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

In July, Odeh was removed from the Knesset plenum after he called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “the biggest terrorist here” when the premier was addressing the Knesset.

The lawmaker announced in May 2023, that he was not planning to run for office in the next elections.

As head of Hadash, a left-wing Arab party with communist ties, Odeh led the Joint List of his faction and three other Arab parties from its inception in 2015 until its dissolution in 2022, taking Arab politics to near-unprecedented levels of Knesset representation.

However, he has struggled to transform gains at the ballot box into political influence, with Arab parties often shunned by mainstream Jewish Israeli politicians, and the Arab MKs themselves often rejecting cooperation with both coalition and opposition.

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