Brother of slain hostage Itzik Elgarat says he won’t attend Ran Gvili’s funeral as Netanyahu will be there

Dani Elgarat, the brother of slain Hamas hostage Itzik Elgarat, says he will not attend the funeral of Israel Police Master Sgt. Ran Gvili today, because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to deliver a eulogy.

In a post on X, Elgarat says he had planned to attend and pay his respects to the final hostage returned from Gaza, but, after finding out that “Mr. Abandonment, who is responsible for the October holocaust and the abandonment of the hostages,” will be there, he changed his mind.

“He had the opportunity to attend more than 2,500 funerals,” Elgarat writes, apparently referring to the combined toll of the roughly 1,200 October 7 victims, fallen IDF soldiers, and victims of fighting on other fronts. “He did not attend.”

“Tomorrow, he will attend not out of a sense of responsibility, but so that it cannot be said during election campaigns that he did not attend a single funeral of the fallen hostages,” Elgarat charges, adding that he “will not attend an election event, even if they try to present it as apolitical.”

Elgarat says he will instead visit Gvili’s parents, Talik and Itzik, during the shiva, the weeklong Jewish mourning period, and pay his respects to their son there instead.

President Isaac Herzog is also expected to speak at the funeral, but unlike Netanyahu, he has previously delivered eulogies at the funerals of several other hostages as well.