Two relatives whose loved ones are believed to have been kidnapped by Hamas said they cannot move forward until all the hostages are freed — and one said he’s open to a ceasefire if it means bringing them home.
“I’m calling the government to take any deal now…to bring the hostages back,” Daniel Lifshitz, 35, told The Post.
“It is a very, very important thing. Calling a ceasefire to do that? For sure.”
Lifshitz’s grandparents, 85-year-old Yocheved Lifshitz and Oded Lifshitz, 83, were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz and their home was decimated in Hamas’ Oct. 7 sneak attack.
Yocheved was one of the four hostages who were released last month, while Oded is still believed to be in the terror group’s hands.
“He is the greatest peace activist in the world,” Lifshitz said of his grandfather, who helped found Kibbutz Nir Oz alongside his wife in 1955.
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“The world mission today is to release those hostages,[Eventually] we can speak about the future. But now we cannot while those hostages are there [in Gaza],” Lifshitz lamented.
Nir Chani, 47, agreed that the Israeli government has failed the families of the hostages.
His son, Amit, 16, was abducted by Hamas in front of his mother and younger sisters in Kibbutz Be’eri on Oct. 7.
2005: Israel unilaterally withdraws from the Gaza Strip more than three decades after winning the territory from Egypt in the Six-Day War.
2006: Terrorist group Hamas wins a Palestinian legislative election.
2007: Hamas seizes control of Gaza in a civil war.
2008: Israel launches military offensive against Gaza after Palestinian terrorists fired rockets into the town of Sderot.
2023: Hamas launches the biggest attack on Israel in 50 years, in an early-morning ambush Oct. 7, firing thousands of rockets and sending dozens of militants into Israeli towns.
Terrorists killed more than 1,200 Israelis, wounded more than 4,200, and took at least 200 hostage.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to announce, “We are at war,” and vowed Hamas would pay “a price it has never known.”
The Gaza Health Ministry — which is controlled by Hamas — reported at least 3,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 12,500 injured since the war began.
“We need any help that we can get, the government has its own priorities, and I’m not sure that getting the hostages is number one,” he said.
“I think they want to beat Hamas and to make a point, in my opinion, that was to be done before Oct. 7, and now that could be done later after the hostage situation will be solved.”
Chani’s house in Kibbutz Be’eri was burned, and will probably take a year to rebuild, he explained.
Even so, he admitted he is not sure he even wants to return there.
“I would need to know it’s a safe place,” he said.