‘Netanyahu, don’t bury the hostages’: Protesters demand government close truce deal

Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan, 24, was kidnapped by terrorists from his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, responds to an IDF strike in Gaza earlier today that targeted two senior Hamas military commanders, demanding the government agree to a deal to free the remaining hostages in captivity.

“We’re all for settling the score with the Hamas murders, but not at the cost of our loved ones’s lives and our chances to get them home,” she tells Channel 12, while participating in the final day of a four-day protest march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

“If [Hamas military wing commander] Muhammad Deif was eliminated with a hostage deal on the table, and Netanyahu doesn’t get up now and say he’s willing to take the deal, even at the price of ending the war, that means he’s given up on my Matan, and on the rest of the hostages.”

“Netanyahu, don’t bury the hostages, tell the public now that you support the deal that’s on the table,” she adds.

The IDF announced a short while ago that Deif and Rafa’a Salameh, the commander of Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade, were the target of an airstrike in southern Gaza this morning.

According to the military’s assessments, no hostages were held at the site when the strike was carried out.