Relatives of hostages barred from Likud meeting; PM: ‘Hamas has demands we won’t agree to; war will take months not years’

Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, center, arrives for a Likud faction meeting at the Knesset on February 5, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, center, arrives for a Likud faction meeting at the Knesset on February 5, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Relatives of Israelis held hostage by Hamas in Gaza are turned away from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset, after trying to arrange access for several weeks.

According to Hebrew media reports, the families — who have been a regular presence in the Knesset for months as they lobby for the government to do more to secure their loved ones’ release — were not allowed into the room to address lawmakers ahead of the gathering, despite having done so at several other parties’ faction meetings.

“Likud is the only party that has not met with us to date,” Gil Dickmann, whose cousin Carmel Gat was kidnapped on October 7, tells the Walla news site. “We were hoping that they would meet with us, but they continue to look for reasons not to do it,” he adds, pledging not to stop “until all the abductees return home.”

Coalition whip Ofir Katz said the families would be allowed to attend next week’s meeting, one participant in the meeting tells The Times of Israel.

During the meeting, Netanyahu declares that Israel has already secured the release of 110 of the hostages and will “continue to act on this issue, but Hamas has demands that we will not agree to.”

“The key to their freedom should be similar to the previous agreement,” he states, arguing that the remaining hostages’ return “will not be realized at any cost.”

Netanyahu says that “our goal is a complete victory over Hamas… we will kill the Hamas leadership, therefore we must continue to act in all areas of the Gaza Strip. The war must not end before then. It will take time — months not years.”

The meeting grew contentious, with Economy Minister Nir Barkat accusing Netanyahu of preventing him from bringing in foreign workers to replace the Palestinian laborers blocked from entering Israel from the West Bank after October 7.

“Businesses have not been able to cope with this huge lack of workers for four months,” Channel 12 quotes Barkat as saying.

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