Mother of captive soldier calls hostage video a testament to Netanyahu’s ‘ongoing failure’

During the weekly rally at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, the mother of captive surveillance soldier Liri Albag addresses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz, saying the video Hamas released last week of Liri was a “living testament to your ongoing failure.”

“Have you watched the video?” Shira Albag asks. “Did you sleep well at night?”

She says Liri does not look like herself in the video. “We saw Liri dimmed, afraid, fighting for her life every moment and every minute of the day.”

“Look at her eyes,” she says. “Eyes we know so well. Eyes that scream from inside: ‘Get me out of hell. Don’t forget me.'”

Referring to Youssef and Hamza Ziyadne, whose bodies the IDF recovered from Gaza this week 15 months after they were kidnapped alive, Shira Albag tells Netanyahu that the father and son “survived the depths of hell and were murdered because you didn’t make the right decision in time.”

She adds that hostage negotiations “must not end without a deal to bring Liri and all the hostages home.”

Again addressing Netanyahu, she says: “You have the power, you have the moral authority.”

“The time to act is now,” Shira Albag continues. “Not tomorrow, not in a week. Now!”

Speaking in English, outgoing US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew tells the hundreds-strong crowd that “we join you in the hope that the talks in Doha succeed.”

“The United States demands the release of seven of our hostages, four of whom we know to be dead — now!” Lew declares, saying the last word in Hebrew to applause.

“There could a ceasefire tomorrow, and an end to the suffering of Gazans, if Hamas releases the hostages,” adds Lew.

British Ambassador Simon Walters also speaks, but in Hebrew, drawing on his childhood in war-torn northern Ireland as an example of the sacrifices needed to make peace.

“Every step toward peace was very painful, but that is the only way,” he says.

“Hamas is fully responsible for these crimes, but practically, we know the only way to bring the hostages home is through negotiations,” he says.

Also in Hebrew, German Ambassador Steffen Seibert pledges his government’s support for the hostages.

He calls for an end to the “indescribable suffering of hundreds of thousands of Gazans.”

“I know this is not a popular thing to say” to some in Israel, Seibert says. “But these tragedies are linked.”