From the Liveblog of
Friday, March 15, 2024
‘We can envisage embracing them again:’ Hostage families urge war cabinet to seize on emerging deal
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleJessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel's culture and lifestyles editor, covers the Sabra scene from south to north and back to the center
The Hostages Families Forum headquarters releases a statement, appealing to the war cabinet ahead of its meeting later in the day to deliberate on the possibility of finalizing a hostage deal, following the Hamas response to a deal outline.
“For the first time, we can envision embracing them again, please grant us this right,” state the families.
They call on the prime minister and war cabinet not to postpone the deal and to save all 134 “daughters and sons who were cruelly taken, solely for being Israelis,” state the families. “For the first time, we can envision embracing them again. Please grant us this right.”
Representatives of about 20 families were invited for a personal meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara last night, after not meeting with the prime minister for more than six weeks. The families tell the prime minister that these meetings with him and members of the war cabinet are “vital” and asked that they take regularly and frequently, after weeks of asking for meetings and noting the far more frequent meetings with US administration officials.
The families emphasize that it is the prime minister’s “responsibility and commitment to secure the release of all the hostages, both the living and the murdered,” they say in a statement, and tell him their sense of feeling invisible in the process of a hostage deal.
The Times of Israel Community.