Slain captive’s son says his father’s body is being ‘ransomed by Hamas and the prime minister’

Boaz Zalmanovich, son of slain captive Aryeh Zalmanovich, says his father’s body is “being ransomed by Hamas and the prime minister,” eliciting jeers from the 1,500-odd crowd at the anti-government, pro-hostage deal protest outside the IDF headquarters on Tel Aviv’s Begin Road.

“My father lies silent in a pit in Khan Younis, and we have to scream and shout,” he says.

Zalmanovich says Independence Day, which Israel marked on Thursday, left him wishing two things: that none of the 24 living captives join the ranks of the “victims of abandonment in Hamas captivity,” and that the 35 confirmed dead will be buried in Israel.

When he mentions the official number of living hostages, one protester yells “fewer” — an allusion to a comment this Monday by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife, Sara, which outraged hostage families.

“Our loved ones will not be abandoned,” says Zalmanovich. “Their souls will not be captive in the hands of the coalition of death.”

He adds that he wishes Netanyahu would accept responsibility for the failure to avert the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023.

“Obviously, there’s no chance,” says Zalmanovich. “If he accepts responsibility for the failure of October 7, for the massacre, for the hostages who were murdered and the hostages who are still there, he’ll see a merciless, inhuman character, during whose time the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust took place — and he’ll understand that it’s he himself.”