Father of slain captive: Senior official told me he can ‘also deal with 200 more bereaved families’

Rabbi Elhanan Danino, father of slain hostage Ori Danino, speaks at an event in Tel Aviv's Hostages Square, September 10, 2024. (Paulina Patimer / Hostage Families Forum)
Rabbi Elhanan Danino, father of slain hostage Ori Danino, speaks at an event in Tel Aviv's Hostages Square, September 10, 2024. (Paulina Patimer / Hostage Families Forum)

Rabbi Elhanan Danino, the father of hostage Ori Danino, who was murdered in captivity, reveals that a “senior official” told him that he “could also deal with another 200 bereaved families.”

Speaking to the Kan public broadcaster, Danino talks about the callousness of Israel’s political leadership, saying that when he spoke to military and security officials who were trying to secure the release of the hostages, the conversations were “straight and pure.”

However, “when it reaches the cabinet, and then the aquarium, it gradually fades away,” he says, referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s inner sanctum.

Danino says one of the worst things he heard was when “a senior official,” an apparent reference to Netanyahu, told him that he “could also deal with another 200 bereaved families.”

His son, Master Sgt. Ori Danino, an off-duty soldier with the Paratroopers’ Brigade, was captured from the Supernova music festival after he went back to try to save his friends. Danino was then held hostage for 11 months before he was executed by Hamas. His body was recovered by troops on August 31 from a tunnel in southern Gaza’s Rafah along with those of Eden Yerushalmi, Carmel Gat, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alex Lobanov, and Almog Sarusi.

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