Hostage’s brother: Why the hell are we going for a partial hostage-ceasefire deal?

Speaking to some 1,500 protesters at the anti-government hostage families’ demonstration on Tel Aviv’s Begin Road, Yotam Cohen, brother of captive soldier Nimrod Cohen, assails the emerging Gaza ceasefire-hostage deal, which would pause the fighting for 60 days and see roughly half the hostages released in five phases.

“Why the hell are we going for a partial deal?” he says. “A deal that will leave Hamas in place for at least two months takes and will take a heavy toll on the Israeli economy, and worst of all — leave 10 living hostages in captivity.”

Cohen accuses National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich of dragging Israel into an interminable “religious war.”

“We must not let the terrorists Ben Gvir and Smotrich sacrifice more soldiers [and] sentence more hostages to death on an altar of settlements and messianism,” says Cohen.

Einav Zangauker, the mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, also calls for a deal to end the war and release all the hostages.

“Nothing has been promised to me. We don’t know if Matan will get out” in the emerging deal, she says. “What I do know is that after the 60th day of this deal, after the end of the ceasefire, there will still be hostages in Gaza.”

Hanging from the pedestrian bridge where the speakers stand is a large banner demanding the release of “everyone in a single phase.” Underneath, protesters chant: “We’re all hostages of the government of blood.”