‘Angry, humiliated’ hostage parents fume at top negotiator: He offered no action plan

The father of hostage Eitan Mor and mother of captive Avinatan Or send a letter to Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, a top confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s chief negotiator in ceasefire talks with Hamas, saying they feel “angry, humiliated, confused and exhausted” after meeting with him to discuss the efforts to return their loved ones from Gaza.

According to Tzvika Mor and Ditza Or, who are both affiliated with the hawkish Tikva Forum, Dermer did not ask why they sought the meeting, a request they say they made some time ago.

“You opened with an uncontrolled attack of talking, which none of us got nearly anything out of. The three of us are not stupid. The few words we managed to get in were by an impolite outburst, in your words. If we were not impolite, we would not have even gotten to express that little,” Mor and Or write to Dermer.

“The choice of this strategy (and you are not the first to take it) expresses deep disrespect toward us as people, as heartbroken parents.”

They continue: “For nearly two hours, you told us in great and irritating detail about the stages of the fighting and the agreements since the start of the war. Occasionally we asked you that we focus on the current time period and how we are dealing with the challenges before us now, but it did not help. You insisted on continuing the historical summary. Ultimately, after two irrelevant hours, there was little time left to discuss possible current courses of action, and we were already completely worn out.”

Mor and Or say that in the hours after the meeting, “we understood the enormity of the disaster.”

“Whoever does not come out [of Gaza] in the current small group is abandoned to their fate in the depths of hell. We did not understand from you any operative proposal that will succeed in returning [the hostages] home, or when. At our request, you gave an estimated time frame of 3-6 months, but without a plan of action.”

“Our loved ones are abandoned in hell and will patiently and politely wait until their bitter end. We again warn you not to dare discriminate between blood, to prioritize the lives of selected hostages at the price of others’ lives. You have no right to surrender or give up on our loved ones’ lives. Only everyone [all the captives] together.”