From the Liveblog of
Monday, September 1, 2025
Mother of hostage Matan Angrest: ‘Do not endanger any soldiers to rescue him, we need to reach a deal’
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The mother of hostage Matan Angrest pleads for no attempt to be made to rescue her son, a year after six hostages were murdered by their captors in a Rafah tunnel as IDF troops neared.
“My son is still alive and I ask: Do not endanger any soldier to rescue him. Matan will not be able to live with this in peace, and neither will we,” Anat Angrest tells Channel 12.
“No one needs to die to save him. We need to reach a deal and return the hostages home, as well as the soldiers and reservists who are collapsing under the strain,” she says, referring to the repeated call-ups for multiple rounds of military service in almost two years of war.
“Right now, soldiers are being sent to endanger themselves and the hostages,” she says.
Angrest, 21, an IDF soldier, was kidnapped from a tank by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023. He is said to be suffering serious injuries.
Just eight hostages have been rescued from captivity alive by troops since the start of the war.
Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are holding 48 hostages, including 47 of the 251 abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023. They include the bodies of at least 26 confirmed dead by the IDF. Twenty are believed to be alive and there are grave concerns for the well-being of two others, Israeli officials have said. Hamas is also holding the body of an IDF soldier killed in Gaza in 2014.
The Times of Israel Community.