Brother of captive soldier: ‘Sickening’ symmetry between Hamas and Netanyahu, government wants hostages dead

At the anti-government, pro-hostage deal demonstration on Tel Aviv’s Begin Road, Yotam Cohen, brother of captive soldier Nimrod Cohen, says the government prefers dead hostages.

“The government prefers dead hostages. Dead hostages talk less. They don’t give interviews, or fly to [meet] Trump,” says Yotam Cohen, adding that if the government “doesn’t manage to kill them with military pressure, they’ll kill them in roundabout ways.”

Cohen recalls that when the Begin Road protests grew exponentially in September after the murder in captivity of six hostages, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office accused protesters of emboldening Hamas.

That response, says Cohen, is similar to the Hamas statement that anti-Hamas protesters in Gaza this week were “friends of the Zionist enemy” and were demanding unacceptable concessions.

“Netanyahu and Hamas use the same rhetoric and the same psychological terrorism for suppression and silencing,” says Cohen. “The symmetry is sickening.”

He also says he heard from former hostages held with his brother that their captors “refrained from exposing them to Israeli media, and when the hostages asked why, they responded, ‘to protect them.'”

“To protect them from statements of [National Security Minister Itamar] Ben Gvir the terrorist, [Settlements and National Missions Minister] Orit Strock, [Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich and Netanyahu,” says Cohen, referring to ministers who oppose a hostage deal.

“For every populist tweet by Ben Gvir about humanitarian aid, another hostage is starved. For every threat by [Defense Minister Israel] Katz, another hostage is beaten. For every statement by Netanyahu, another hostage loses hope that they’ll be brought back home,” Cohen says.