‘Shocked’ PM vows ‘action’ over emaciated hostages; critics ask, ‘What did he expect?’
Security offical: It should have come as no surprise to Netanyahu; hostage’s father blasts him for staying in DC as ‘Israeli citizens are released looking like Holocaust survivors’
A statement released by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Saturday said that the emaciated appearance of three hostages freed by Hamas was unacceptable and Israel would take action on the matter.
Eli Sharabi, Or Levy and Ohad Ben Ami appeared severely malnourished and frail as they were made to take part in a Hamas propaganda ceremony ahead of their release by the terror group.
“The shocking images we saw today will not pass without response,” the statement from Netanyahu’s office said. “The government, together with security officials, will support them and their families. Israel is committed to bringing back all the hostages and missing.”
Netanyahu was in Washington for a meeting with US President Donald Trump that was held on Tuesday, in addition to meetings with other officials.
As he almost always does on foreign trips, Netanyahu extended his stay to remain abroad over Shabbat, during which the hostages were released as part of the ongoing hostage-ceasefire deal with the Hamas terror group.
A second statement, released a short time later by Netanyahu’s office, said Israel would take unspecified actions in response to the conditions of the three men.
“Due to the harsh condition of the three hostages and the repeated violations of the Hamas terror groups, the prime minister has ordered that Israel will not gloss over this and will take action as needed,” the statement said.
Officials declined to specify what actions Israel will take.
Senior officials in the defense establishment reportedly denounced Netanyahu later on Saturday, after the statement in which he expressed outrage and threatened Hamas over the emaciated condition of the three former captives.
“What did he expect?” Channel 12 quoted one source saying. “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 his remarks.
In response, an unnamed source close to Netanyahu said that Israel was not previously aware that Hamas was deliberately starving the hostages.
Relatives of a number of hostages responded to the statement from Netanyahu’s office with a plea for the appearance of the three men to galvanize officials into advancing the next stages of the agreement as fast as possible.
Amos Horn, whose brothers Iair and Eitan are being held hostage, appealed to the premier to take action to ensure phases two and three of the hostage-ceasefire deal come to fruition.
“I hope your plans are to bring all the teams to Doha to sign the next phases in the deal, and to return our abducted brothers and sisters who are in hellish and Holocaust-like conditions,” Amos Horn said, according to the Ynet news site.
Horn called for the public to join the protests calling for the release of the hostages: “They cannot be left there any longer.”
Iair Horn is among the 33 hostages to be released in the deal’s first phase, while Eitan Horn is to remain in Gaza for now under the terms of the agreement.
Yehuda Cohen, whose son Nimrod is held hostage in Gaza and also not expected to be released in the current round, blasted the premier for staying in Washington.
“It is worth mentioning that at the same time that Israeli citizens are being released from Hamas captivity [looking] like Holocaust survivors, Netanyahu is spending time in a luxury hotel suite in Washington, at the expense of the Israeli taxpayer, and the expense of the suffering of the hostages,” he said, according to Ynet.
Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan is held hostage and is not set to be freed in the current, 42-day phase one of the deal, told Channel 12: “I don’t think there’s a drop of blood in my body that isn’t boiling with rage” after watching the release of the three hostages today.
She said she and other families of hostages have been in the US in the past few days pleading with US President Donald Trump and his officials on behalf of Israeli hostages and that this is a surreal situation.
“The US administration is totally committed to the return of all the hostages, to the very last one.” Yet Prime Minister Netanyahu, she said, “continues to play political games at the expense” of those hostages who have not been released.
“A great deal of pressure” is being exerted by the US leadership on Netanyahu to complete the entire deal, “but to my sorrow, the prime minister is being politically extorted” by his far-right coalition partners.
“How is it possible not to continue to phase two” of the deal?” Zangauker wailed, and asked why the talks on phase two are not being expedited.
The prime minister vowed “to take steps” after seeing the condition of today’s three freed hostages, she noted.
“The only step that needs to be taken is for the prime minister to phone the head of the Mossad” and the other Israeli negotiators, and “order them to immediately start phase two. There is no time. We are in a Holocaust reality and we cannot allow it to go on.
“The people must take to the streets. The state needs to stop today… All of the hostages must be saved. My son is enduring a holocaust. Today’s survivors looked like they’d emerged from concentration camps… The prime minister must end the war and get everybody back, today,” she pleaded.
Though talks for the second phase were supposed to commence Monday, Netanyahu has pushed off sending a negotiating team, reportedly until he returns from Washington, in what would apparently be a violation of the deal’s terms.
The delay in talks on the second phase has deeply worried the families of male hostages and those who have been killed, and are not set to be released until phases two and three.
