Brother of slain captive slams PM’s ’empty’ UN speech, blames him for Oct. 7 ‘holocaust’

Dani Elgarat, the remains of whose brother Itzik Elgarat were returned by Hamas during a ceasefire earlier this year, accuses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of abandoning the hostages and seeking to take over the Shin Bet security service.

He also accuses the prime minister of being responsible for a “holocaust” by allowing the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack.

Speaking to some 300 people at the Begin Road entrance to the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv, in the first anti-government protest there in several weeks, Elgarat parodies the section of Netanyahu’s Friday speech to the United Nations General Assembly in which he posed multiple-choice questions to his viewers.

“What is Bibi responsible for?” asks Elgarat, using the premier’s nickname. “For the October 7 holocaust? For the deaths in captivity of 42 hostages? For the abandonment of the hostages in Gaza? For the abandonment of the soldiers in a political war? Or all of the above?”

As in Netanyahu’s speech, where the premier sought to show that Iran and its proxies sought to kill Westerners, Elgarat says the answer to his question is “all of the above.”

“But the worst sin of all is Netanyahu’s way of abusing the hostage families, and now, the hostages themselves,” he says. He slammed Netanyahu’s order to the military to broadcast his speech via loudspeakers in and around Gaza so that the premier, according to his remarks at the UN, could speak directly to the hostages.

“Instead of embracing and listening [to the hostage families], he operates a network of loudspeakers against the captives and their families, he spreads lies, he spreads lies, he tries to call their loyalty into question and sap their strength,” says Elgarat. “And why? Only because they remind him that he is responsible. And that is a moral low point that only Netanyahu could descend to.”

“In addition to that, there is the corruption that continues harming national security, and at the top of the list, the appointment of the Shin Bet head,” Maj. Gen. (res.) David Zini, Netanyahu’s nominee, whose candidacy was approved by a statutory committee on Thursday after a protracted legal battle.

“Netanyahu wants to take even the most sensitive body and turn it into a political pawn,” says Elgarat.

“We don’t need more empty speeches — we need strong, honest leadership,” says Elgarat, who is running in primary elections for a seat in Knesset as part of the left-wing Democrats party.

He castigates “a leadership that is willing to pay a political price to save the nation, bring back the hostages, undo the schism and return the Zionist dream to its rightful place.”

“The real Israel” does not belong to Netanyahu, he says. “It belongs to us, and we’ll establish it anew. We’re going to beat him.”

After the speech, the crowd chants, “a political war — a betrayal of Israel,” and “Bibi and Sinwar — money from Qatar,” a reference to the Qatari cash that flowed to Gaza and Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s chief there, for years with Netanyahu’s approval, and to allegations that Netanyahu’s aides worked for Qatar while in his employ.