Slain hostage’s mother says Israel should ‘surrender’ to Hamas to save captives

Iris Haim, the mother of slain hostage Yotam Haim, suggested in a social media post Sunday that Israel should “surrender” to Hamas and end the war to free the remaining hostages in Gaza.

“We surrendered to Hamas for 20 years, we gave more and more and more, and now we need to free those who still can be [freed],” Haim wrote on Facebook, following the recent release of propaganda videos showing two Israeli hostages, Rom Braslavski and Evyatar David, nearing starvation.

“For me and for my family, it’s too late, Yotam won’t return,” Haim wrote of her son, who was taken hostage from Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7, 2023, and managed to flee his captors but was accidentally shot dead by Israeli troops in Gaza on December 15, 2023, alongside two other Israeli hostages. The soldiers mistook him and the other hostages as a threat in the Shejaiya neighborhood of Gaza City.

“Surrender? I’m prepared to surrender, in exchange for the hostages, in exchange for the last honor that remains in the face of the families like mine who still have hope,” Haim wrote.

She added that “if the army is strong enough, there will be companies, platoons and divisions who will protect the residents of the Gaza border — that’s the mission. Not at the expense of the survivors of starvation and abuse who still have breath in their lungs.”

“We need to look the enemy in the eye. We will not defeat them. This picture is a picture of failure for our country, and after it there will be no picture of victory,” she added.

“My child will never come back,” said Haim. “I am a citizen of this country and I do not think we will have a revival without [surrender].”

Referencing Sunday’s Jewish fast holiday of Tisha B’Av, Haim said it was “a day that I was not connected to in any way before October 7, and now I understand the significance.”

Tisha B’Av commemorates the ancient destruction of the two Temples in Jerusalem, as well as a litany of other Jewish historical tragedies.

“We can choose whether we go to our destruction or revival,” she added.

Haim, unlike most of the hostages’ family members, has been vocal in opposition to criticism of the government during the war, and has been absent from most hostage rallies.

War broke out between Israel and Hamas on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led terrorists invaded Israel, killing some 1,200 people and kidnapping 251. Of the 50 hostages remaining in Gaza, Israel believes 20 to still be alive.

Negotiations to return the final hostages have largely stalled since Israel and the US pulled their negotiators from Doha last month due to frustration with Hamas’s response to the most recent phased ceasefire proposal.

While those talks had aimed at securing a 60-day ceasefire in exchange for the return of half of the living and dead captives, a senior Israeli official told reporters Thursday that Israel and the United States are now aligned on aiming for a comprehensive framework in place of a partial ceasefire. However, the official did not mention the timeline for such an agreement.