Two ultra-Orthodox ministers appeared to throw their support Monday behind a deal to release the hostages held in Gaza, with one of them saying his entire party will back “any measure” that brings back the captives home.
The development came following threats by the far-right flank of the government to bolt the coalition if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approves a hostage and truce deal presented by US President Joe Biden late last week.
“I told the representatives of the kidnapped families today that our position is that there is nothing greater than the value of life and the mitzvah of ransoming captives, because there is a real and tangible danger to their lives,” United Torah Judaism chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf posted on X, alongside a photo of himself meeting relatives of hostages.
“Therefore, we will support any proposal that will lead to the release of the abductees,” said Goldknopf, who is the housing and construction minister.
His post came hours before the Israel Defense Forces announced the deaths of four hostages held in Gaza since October 7, sparking spontaneous protests around the country.
All four of the hostages had previously been seen alive in propaganda videos filmed during their captivity in Gaza and released by Hamas. They were kidnapped during Hamas’s October 7 massacre, which saw some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border into Israel by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.
In a statement on X after the IDF announcement, Labor Minister Yoav Ben Tzur, a member of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, said that the news “proves to us in blood what a cruel and dangerous reality the hostages are in.
“As a moral nation that sanctifies life over victory, our priority is first and foremost to bring the hostages home alive.”
The far-right leaders of the Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism parties — Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, respectively — both threatened on Saturday night to bring down the government if a newly proposed hostage release and ceasefire deal presented by Biden on Friday is adopted by the government. If both their parties bolt the coalition, that would leave Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu without a majority in the Knesset.
But on Tuesday morning, Einav Zangauker, the activist mother of hostage Matan, said in an interview with Kol Israel radio that Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, from Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit, had confessed to her that the party’s vow to topple the government was nothing more than an empty threat.
It is believed that 120 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza — not all of them alive — after 105 civilians were released from Hamas captivity during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released prior to that. Three hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 19 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military.
The IDF has confirmed the deaths of 41 of those still held by Hamas, citing new intelligence and findings obtained by troops operating in Gaza.
One more person is listed as missing since October 7, and their fate is still unknown.
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.