Live Update 
From the Liveblog of
Saturday, April 26, 2025
From the Liveblog of
Saturday, April 26, 2025
Freed hostage: I felt ‘terrible desperation’ when Ben Gvir said he wouldn’t back deal
Released hostage Meirav Tal speaks at a rally at Hostages Square, Tel Aviv, April 26, 2025. (Paulina Patimer/Hostages and Missing Families Forum)
Meirav Tal, a hostage released as part of a November 2023 truce, says the government’s sole duty is to return all the captives kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, 2023.
“Not some of them, not when it’s comfortable, everyone,” she tells demonstrators at Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square.
Tal recounts how she felt “terrible desperation” while held hostage, when she heard the far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir say he would not approve the deal that ended up freeing her.
“I didn’t understand how a Jew, a brother of my nation, was able to say he didn’t want us to return,” she says. “That place — dark, cold, scary — leaves you with a little hope. Then someone from home, from my people, comes and takes that away too.”
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