Invoking Yoni Netanyahu, rescued hostage urges the prime minister to make a hostage deal with Hamas

Andrey Kozlov, who was rescued last month from Gaza after 246 days in captivity, thanks Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his extraction and, invoking the legacy of Netanyahu’s late brother Yoni, asks him to make a deal with Hamas to retrieve dozens of other hostages still in Gaza.

Kozlov, 27, makes this appeal this evening while addressing thousands of people attending the weekly rally for the hostages on Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square,

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, thank you for bringing me back home. Now, as your brother did, please bring back the rest of the hostages,” says Kozlov, referencing Yoni Netanyahu who fell on July 4, 1976, while participating in the successful rescue of Israeli hostages in Entebbe, Uganda. “There is nothing more important than getting a deal to bring back all the hostages,” says Kozlov.

He adds that “every day in Gaza was living hell” and that “time is running out for the hostages.”

Gabriela Leimberg, another ex-hostage who was freed in a deal with Hamas, follows Kozlov on stage at the event organized by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.

“Don’t anybody dare to kid themselves that there is any way but a deal to get them back,” Leimberg says of the remaining hostages.

Leimberg’s brother and brother-in-law, Fernando Marmam and Louis Har, are among seven people rescued for far by the Israel Defense Forces.

But such operations will not end in the release of the remaining hostages, she says. “Don’t anybody dare kid themselves: Only a deal will bring them back.” The crowd chants: “Deal now.”

Israel is engaged in talks on a hostage release with Hamas, which reportedly is demanding the release of many Palestinian prisoners and a temporary ceasefire in Gaza, among other demands.