No more ‘cannon fodder’: Parents of troops, slain hostages demand Gaza deal
Netanyahu accused of endangering soldiers to stay in office, as official insists no progress in Doha while feting arrival of Trump aide Witkoff; Hamas claims war toll tops 46,000
Hundreds of parents of troops fighting in Gaza accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of needlessly prolonging the conflict and risking the lives of their children Thursday, as an Israeli official dismissed talks of progress in ongoing negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage release deal.
Inside the enclave, Israeli airstrikes pounded areas in the Strip’s north and center a day after the body of at least one hostage previously thought to be alive was recovered.
Health officials in the Hamas-controlled Strip said the death toll in over 15 months of fighting had risen beyond 46,000, though the figure could not be verified.
In an open letter to Netanyahu, more than 800 parents of Israel Defense Forces soldiers fighting in Gaza or who previously fought in the enclave, accused the premier of acting irresponsibly in managing the war, demanding he reach a deal and threatening to launch an “all-out struggle.”
“Our sons and daughters set out on a necessary war brought upon us by your actions,” the parents claimed, addressing Netanyahu. “They lost many friends and are continuing to die and get injured, mentally and physically.”
We “cannot allow you to continue sacrificing our children as cannon fodder,” added the group, called Parents of Soldiers Say Enough.
A total of 396 soldiers have been killed fighting in Gaza since the war broke out on October 7, 2023, with Hamas’s devastating onslaught against southern Israel, including six troops killed in the last week alone. Thousands more have suffered injuries, many of them serious.
“The IDF has no reason to stay in Gaza, besides fulfilling messianic wishes of settling there,” the letter alleged, pushing back against Netanyahu’s stance that continued military action would free the 98 hostages believed to remain in Gaza, almost all of them kidnapped on October 7.
They charged the fighting in Gaza was “a war without a horizon, unlike anything in our history, solely in the interest of your own political survival.” Critics have accused Netanyahu of bowing to the demands of his far-right coalition partners, who openly seek to resettle the Strip, thus refusing to seal a deal that ends the war and frees the hostages.
An Israeli official told The Times of Israel on Thursday that recent days had seen no dramatic developments in mediated talks on a ceasefire-hostage release deal taking place in Doha, and that Hamas still has not provided a list of living hostages. Talks were nevertheless ongoing.
On Thursday, a Palestinian official close to the mediation efforts said the absence of a deal so far did not mean that talks were going nowhere and that this was the most serious attempt so far.
“There are extensive negotiations, mediators and negotiators are talking about every word and every detail. There is a breakthrough when it comes to narrowing old existing gaps but there is no deal yet,” he told Reuters, without giving further details.
Qatar, the US and Egypt are making a major push to reach a deal to halt fighting in the 15-month conflict and free remaining hostages held by Hamas before US President Joe Biden leaves office.
President-elect Donald Trump has warned there will be “hell to pay” if the hostages are not released by his inauguration on January 20.
The Israeli official said Egypt was not present at the talks. “They help when there are certain obstacles. It is possible that if there is progress we will bring in the Egyptians physically. For now, they’re helping from the side.”
Contradicting recent reports in the media, the official insisted that Israel is not open to giving Hamas a short ceasefire period to put together a list of hostages still alive, dismissing the claim as “fake news.”
Israel has insisted that the terror group detail the condition of the hostages who would potentially be released in the first stage of a possible deal, but Hamas has argued fighting must stop for several days to facilitate such a move.
The official also called the arrival of Trump aide Steve Witkoff to the Qatar talks a positive development: “More pressure on Hamas is always welcome,” they said.
In recent days, discussions have focused on Hamas’s demand for a complete cessation of fighting to release hostages not freed in a first “humanitarian” phase, which will include women, the elderly and those suffering injuries.
“We are trying to find language that is ambiguous enough to square the circle,” the official said.
There is also disagreement over freeing male hostages in their 50s: “Hamas says they are willing to release them, but they want a lot of ‘valuable’ terrorists, terrorists with blood on their hands, released,” according to the official.
Speaking in Paris on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that “we’re very close” to reaching a deal, “but if we don’t, then the plan that President [Joe] Biden put forward for a ceasefire-hostage deal will be handed over to the incoming administration.”
The Hamas-run health ministry in the Gaza Strip claimed Thursday that over 70 Palestinians were killed and 104 were wounded by Israeli strikes over the past day. Hamas officials now claim that more than 46,000 people have been killed throughout the ongoing war in the Strip. The terror group’s figures are unverified and don’t differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Rescuers claimed that eight people were killed in an airstrike on a house in Jabalia in northern Gaza, and that four people — including three girls — were killed in a strike on their house in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
COGAT, the Israeli body responsible for activity in the West Bank and Gaza, said Thursday that it had facilitated the transfer of large quantities of humanitarian aid to several hospitals in the Strip over the previous three days.
The shipments included 6,750 liters of fuel, 10,000 liters of water, dozens of food crates and nearly 300 boxes of medical supplies, COGAT said.
There was no IDF comment on the reported attacks.
The strikes came after the IDF announced Wednesday that it had recovered the body of Hamas hostage Youssef Ziyadne from inside a tunnel, as well as remains that it was concerned could belong to his son, Hamza Ziyadne.
In Tel Aviv, family members of hostages killed in Gazan captivity gathered to mourn Ziyadne, calling on the government to sign a hostage deal.
“We are the members of a cohort of loss and bereavement,” said Rachel Goldberg-Polin, mother of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was killed with five other hostages by their captors in late August. “We don’t want any more people to join our community of agony and pain and yet tragically just yesterday the Ziyadne families joined us. We implore all world leaders to make a deal and bring all 99 remaining hostages home.”
Israel believes 95 of the 251 hostages kidnapped by Hamas and other terror groups on October 7 are still being held in Gaza. At least 34 of them are thought to have been killed, some of them while in captivity.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.
The war in Gaza broke out on October 7, 2023, when some 3,000 Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel from the enclave, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, amid acts of brutality and sexual assault. The subsequent multifront war has also seen other Iranian-backed forces — including Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and Iran itself — attack Israel, and the Jewish state respond militarily.
Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 39 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
Jessica Steinberg contributed to this report.
