Sara Netanyahu said to berate hostage families for ‘shocking’ protests against her husband

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife, Sara Netanyahu irked families of Israelis held hostage in Gaza during a recent meeting, Channel 12 reports, when she slammed the “shocking demonstrations” against her husband’s government, and claimed that he was “doing everything he can” for the return of their loved ones.

Citing leaked snippets of the conversation between the hostage families and the prime minister’s wife, Channel 12 reports that Netanyahu echoed her husband’s oft-repeated talking points, telling the families that if Israel were to withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor, “we will not be able to return to it. We will experience another October 7.”

A relative of one of the hostages then retorts the “Ben Gvir-Smotrich Axis,” a reference to Netanyahu’s far-right lawmakers who have been outspoken in their opposition to any sort of hostage release-ceasefire deal.

Netanyahu goes on to criticize Saturday night’s unprecedented protests, in which upward of 500,000 people were estimated to have demonstrated against the government and in support of a hostage deal, appearing to take it personally.

“The demonstrations against us on Saturday were shocking,” Sara Netanyahu is quoted as having said. “Hamas doesn’t want a deal, my husband is doing everything he can, he wants everyone to be back home.”

A family member responds: “It is not enough for him to want it. He has to do everything for it. He’s afraid that his government will be overthrown. The entire security establishment says it will be easy to return to the Philadelphi Corridor.”

Sara Netanyahu counters that “the IDF also said that Hamas was deterred,” and, deflecting blame leveled at her husband for the failures surrounding the October 7 massacre, adds: “The prime minister knew nothing.”

Later in the conversation, she is reported to have reiterated her husband’s claim — said by Channel 12 to be unfounded — that if the IDF withdraws from the Philadelphi Corridor, Hamas could smuggle the hostages across the border and into “Yemen and Iran.”