Ministers call to destroy Hamas after hostages return looking like ‘Holocaust survivors’
Opposition leaders say poor condition of captives means ‘no time to lose’ in bringing back all remaining hostages; Smotrich calls Hamas Nazis but then decries Holocaust comparisons
Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday night threatened Hamas with elimination following the release of three Israeli hostages in emaciated condition earlier in the day, vowing to destroy the Palestinian Islamist terror group.
Netanyahu described the organization as “monsters” and said US President Donald Trump agreed with him that Hamas must not remain in power in Gaza. He vowed that Israel would “eliminate the Islamist terror group and return all the remaining hostages.”
Government ministers also reacted with horror to the sight of gaunt and frail hostages, describing them as akin to Holocaust survivors, and called for the destruction of the organization.
Opposition leaders also deplored the poor condition of the hostages, and insisted their parlous health made it all the more important for the government to secure the urgent release of all remaining captives to alleviate their suffering.
The three hostages freed by Hamas on Saturday — Eli Sharabi, 52, Or Levy, 34, and Ohad Ben Ami, 56 — looked emaciated and unsteady on their feet as they were released by the terror group, 16 months after they were kidnapped from Kibbutz Be’eri and the Nova music festival.
The Health Ministry said they were suffering from “severe malnutrition” and lost significant body weight during their 491 days in captivity, after conducting initial medical checks in the hours following their release.
“We have once again seen what the Hamas monsters are. They are the same monsters who slaughtered our citizens and abused our captives,” said Netanyahu on Saturday evening.
The prime minister said the government would do everything to return the remaining hostages, adding that he had given instructions to the Israeli negotiating team to demand their safety.
“But beyond that, President Trump agreed with me totally: We will do everything to return all the hostages, but Hamas won’t be there. We will eliminate Hamas, and return all our captives,” added Netanyahu, who was in Washington after extending his trip over the weekend in a move criticized by hostage families.
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar also denounced the international community for having accused Israel of starving Gaza’s population during the war, with the minister saying Hamas fighters and Palestinians civilians “look excellent” while the Israeli hostages emerged gaunt and frail.
“For over a year, the international community danced to the false tunes of the so-called starvation in Gaza propaganda, but the pictures don’t lie,” said Sa’ar.
“The Hamas terrorists and the Gaza residents look excellent. The Israeli hostages look like Holocaust survivors, and they are the only ones in the pictures who look like they have clearly suffered from malnutrition,” the foreign minister said, accusing Hamas of “committing crimes against humanity” in its treatment of the hostages.
“The Hamas-Nazi evil must be eradicated,” Sa’ar added.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich expressed similar sentiments, commenting that “The sheer evil that the Nazis are committing in Gaza — we will never forget.” Smotrich, who voted against the hostage release and ceasefire deal but remains in the government, said, “such evil must be eradicated from the face of the earth.”
Despite calling Hamas “Nazis,” Smotrich later put out another statement accusing those making Holocaust analogies of minimizing the Nazi genocide of Jews during World War II.
Fellow ultranationalist party leader Itamar Ben Gvir, who recently resigned as national security minister in protest of the agreement, said, “This is a holocaust.” He also called to “encourage voluntary immigration now,” referring to his long-championed policy of having Palestinians leave Gaza, saying, “We have no time!”
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid described the emergence of the three hostages as “difficult scenes,” which he said “underline the urgent need” for the return of the rest of the captives.
“There is no time, time has run out, we have to bring everyone back home,” said Lapid, and then he denounced Netanyahu in a second message following the prime minister’s message regarding the hostages’ physical state.
“Netanyahu, you only found out now that the condition of the hostages was bad? You didn’t know before? Because it was written in the intelligence documents put on your table in recent months. You saw the reports exactly like I did,” Lapid said, while dismissing the prime minister’s earlier statement that he would “take action.”
Head of the National Unity party, Benny Gantz, said the state in which the three hostages were released was “painful proof” that time was running out for the remaining captives. He also compared their condition to that of Holocaust survivors.
“Since the first hostage deal, we have lost dozens of hostages who were alive. We must not lose even one more hostage,” said Gantz, whose mother survived imprisonment at the Nazi camp of Bergen-Belsen during World War II.
“The pictures are harsh, but we are not in the Holocaust era — we have a powerful state and a strong people, we will know how to deal with the difficult prices, maintain Israel’s security, and settle accounts with Hamas.”
He called on Netanyahu “not to waste another minute” and to personally advance the second stage of the hostage-prisoner release deal with Hamas to bring about the release of every last hostage. Netanyahu has not sent negotiators for talks on the second stage, which were supposed to begin on February 3. On Saturday, Netanyahu dispatched a team without authorizing it to discuss the second phase.
Senior officials in the defense establishment, meanwhile, were quoted by Hebrew media outlets denouncing Netanyahu over his statement expressing outrage at the captives’ health conditions.
“What did he expect?” one source told Channel 12 news. “It should have come as no surprise to him. The prime minister is familiar with the intelligence material and the medical opinions. The more time that passes, the more the releases are going to become difficult in terms of the hostages’ appearance. [His comments] are aimed at his political base, because these are pictures [of the gaunt, weak hostages] that harm him politically, but there’s nothing substantive behind them.”
In response, an unnamed source close to Netanyahu said Israel was not previously aware that Hamas was deliberately starving the hostages.
The network also cited a senior Israeli source saying that the delegation of negotiators that Netanyahu sent to hostage talks in Qatar “has no real mandate. [Trump’s envoy Steve] Witkoff asked that a delegation be sent and Netanyahu is doing so, in part to avoid giving Hamas reasons to blow up the deal.” The source stressed that “because of the condition of the hostages, there is not a second to waste.”
Senior figures in the defense establishment have for months criticized Netanyahu for ostensibly slowing and complicating efforts to free the hostages because he fears far-right elements in his coalition would bring it down.
