‘You will not sit here while our children die’: Hostages’ families disrupt Knesset committee

Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"

Demonstrators burst into a meeting of the Knesset Finance Committee to call for government action to free relatives held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, January 22, 2024. (Oren Ben Hakoon/Flash90)
Demonstrators burst into a meeting of the Knesset Finance Committee to call for government action to free relatives held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, January 22, 2024. (Oren Ben Hakoon/Flash90)

Relatives of Israelis being held hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip burst into the Knesset Finance Committee to demand that the government do more to secure their family members’ release.

“You will not sit here while our children die,” some screamed. “What about ransoming captives?”

“You dismantled a government over hametz but for [the hostages] you don’t dismantle it,” other protesters scream at lawmakers, referring to how a fight over permitting leavened bread in hospitals over Passover was the immediate catalyst for a member of the previous government’s razor-thin coalition to defect, kicking off a three-month tumble toward its collapse.

Responding to the protesters, committee chairman Moshe Gafni of United Torah Judaism says that while “leaving the coalition won’t help” he “understood” the protesters’ pain.

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