The Hostages and Missing Families Forum demanded Monday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu retract a statement he made at a Sunday press conference, where he pledged to free 20 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
When asked at the press conference whether he would agree to a partial hostage release deal, the prime minister committed himself to “the release of all 20 of our hostages.”
There are 50 hostages held by terror groups in Gaza, at least 20 of whom are thought to be alive. Twenty-eight have been declared dead based on intelligence findings, while authorities have expressed “grave concern” for the lives of two other hostages who have not been seen or heard from in close to two years of captivity.
The forum, which represents relatives of most of the hostages, demanded that Netanyahu clarify his words.
At an event today at the opening of a new Knesset museum, Netanyahu indeed stated: “We are struggling for all of them, the living and the fallen as one.”
“Assure the people of Israel that you are committed to returning everyone — the living and the dead,” the forum said in its statement. “The prime minister must clarify that he was wrong, and that his commitment is to all 50 hostages, alive and dead, to ensure the return of the living for rehabilitation and the dead for a proper and respectful burial.”
Earlier on in the Sunday press conference, which was for Israeli media, Netanyahu declared: “As for our goal [in expanding military operations in Gaza], we want to free all the hostages. When I say ‘all,’ I mean the living and the dead.”
But several times throughout the remainder of the event, Netanyahu referred specifically to the imperative to secure the release of the “20” hostages Israel believes to be alive, rather than all 50.
The families’ statement comes after the group railed against the government’s recently adopted plan to conquer Gaza City, warning that the maneuver will endanger the hostages who are still alive. Many hostage families have called for a general strike on Sunday in protest of the move. Netanyahu’s national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, and Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir have also reportedly warned that the operation will endanger the hostages.
The Gaza City takeover is due to begin in October — after around a million Gazans currently staying there are relocated southward — and was adopted after negotiations over a ceasefire and hostage release hit an impasse late last month. On Monday, Qatari newspaper Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reported that a Hamas delegation, led by the group’s Gaza leader Khalil al-Hayya, was heading to Cairo as part of an effort to revive the negotiation channel between Hamas and Egypt, with the aim of reaching a ceasefire in Gaza.
According to the unconfirmed report, Turkey helped renew the connection between Egypt and Hamas.
And on Saturday, Channel 12 journalist Amit Segal reported that an unnamed Israeli source with knowledge of the matter had said there was a chance for Israel and Hamas to reach a limited ceasefire deal. US special envoy Steve Witkoff met Qatari Prime Minister Abdulrahman al-Thani in Spain that day to discuss a comprehensive deal for an end to the Gaza war and the release of all 50 remaining hostages, Axios reported. Israel has expressed preference for a comprehensive deal as well.
Against that backdrop, American relatives of hostage Rom Braslavski are hoping to obtain US citizenship for him, after a video was recently released showing him emaciated.
“We are hoping for that Trump card, for the American citizenship route,” said Braslavski’s cousin, Roye Ben-Menahem. “To see that bear fruit could be the greatest gift so that Rom could get the same treatment as Edan Alexander” — a reference to an American-Israeli hostage who was released byHamas in May as a gesture to the United States.
Ben-Menahem and his mother were sending letters to various officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, requesting that Braslavski be granted US citizenship based on the American status of his grandmother, aunt and cousin.
Nava Freiberg contributed to this report.