Latest news with #HostageandMissingFamiliesForum
RTHK
13-05-2025
- Politics
- RTHK
US envoys meet families of Israeli hostages
US envoys meet families of Israeli hostages US special envoy for hostage response Adam Boehler arrives in Tel Aviv's Hostages Square. Photo: AFP Two US envoys on Tuesday met the families of Israeli hostages in Tel Aviv, a day after the release of American-Israeli captive Edan Alexander. The Hostage and Missing Families Forum said in a statement that US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and hostage envoy Adam Boehler "recently concluded a meeting with" members of the Israeli campaign group. "During the nearly two-hour meeting, both officials emphasised their personal commitment to bringing back all 58 remaining hostages – both the living and the deceased," said the group, which has campaigned for the release of the hostages. "Witkoff emphasised that they will accept nothing less than the return of everyone, as this is the US President's (Donald Trump's) mission," the statement said. Negotiations for the release of the remaining hostages have been ongoing, with the latest talks taking place in Doha. Of the 251 hostages taken during Hamas's October 2023 attack, 57 remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead. Hamas is also holding the body of an Israeli soldier killed during a previous war in Gaza, in 2014. The Forum said Witkoff and Boehler expressed their confidence in "a genuine chance for progress in negotiations," which comes as Trump tours Gulf countries, including Qatar. Witkoff also met Edan Alexander, who was released on Monday after he was taken during the 2023 attack by Hamas. "I was honoured to meet Edan Alexander today and welcome him home," Witkoff said on X. "We also had the opportunity to speak with (Trump), whose leadership made this possible. We remain committed to bringing every last hostage home." (AFP)
Al Manar
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Al Manar
Families of Israeli Captives: Gov't 'Choosing Territories over Hostages'
The families of Israeli captives slammed Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government over decision to expand the offensive in Gaza, saying that the occupation authorities are disregarding the people by 'choosing territories over hostages.' The Hostage and Missing Families Forum said it is releasing the statement in response to the announcement by an Israeli official earlier this morning that the cabinet plan for operations that was approved last night includes the 'conquering of Gaza and holding territories.' The forum represents the majority of relatives of those held captive in Gaza. 'The plan approved by the cabinet deserves the name 'Smotrich-Netanyahu Plan' for giving up on the hostage and its abandonment of national and security resilience,' the forum said in a statement, referring to Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. Netanyahu and his war cabinet have approved an expansion of the ongoing ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli public broadcaster Kan. For over 63 days, the Israeli occupation has imposed a total siege on the Strip, blocking the entry of humanitarian aid,… — Quds News Network (@QudsNen) May 5, 2025 Throughout the war, Smotrich and others on the far-right have urged using the war as an 'opportunity to reestablish Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip.' 'The government admitted this morning that it is choosing territory over hostages, and this is against the will of over 70% of the people,' the forum said. Polls have consistently shown that a large majority of the Israeli public favors a deal that would see all the captives held in Gaza released, 'even if it means ending the war.'
Yahoo
29-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Thousands of Israelis demonstrate for new hostage deal
Thousands of Israelis staged renewed protests across the country on Saturday in favour of a new deal with Hamas for the release of hostages still being held in the Gaza Strip. According to Israeli media, several thousand people attended a number of rallies in just the coastal city of Tel Aviv. Some protests were explicitly directed against the right-wing government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The organizers of one rally spoke of tens of thousands of participants. Iair Horn, who was released from captivity in Gaza in mid-February, criticized the renewed military operations in the coastal territory in a speech. The fighting endangered all hostages, Horn said: "I was there, I heard tanks pass overhead, I walked through tunnels during the bombardments." He also demanded the release of all persons still being held by Hamas, including his younger brother. Footage from the Hostage and Missing Families Forum showed several former captives in the crowd at the protest in Tel Aviv's Hostages Square. There were also demonstrations in other places in the country, including Haifa and Jerusalem, in favour of a Gaza agreement with Hamas. According to media reports, more than 100,000 people gathered throughout Israel last Saturday for demonstrations, some of which were critical of the government. Further large protests took place over the course of the week, particularly in Jerusalem. Israel's leadership is currently pushing ahead with another controversial reorganization of the country's judiciary, angering many Israelis in the process.
NBC News
20-02-2025
- Politics
- NBC News
Bodies of youngest Hamas hostages said to be among those returned to Israel
Hamas released the bodies of four Israeli hostages on Thursday, including what it says are three members of the Bibas family, who became a symbol of the cruelty of the Palestinian militant group's Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel. Among the bodies believed to be handed over by the Palestinian militant group were those of Kfir and Ariel Bibas, the two youngest captives seized in the attack that started the Israel-Hamas war. The body of their mother, Shiri Bibas, was also handed over, along with that of Oded Lifshitz, 84, according to the Hostage and Missing Families Forum, which represents the families of those still in Hamas captivity. The Israel Defense Forces and Israel Security Agency said the bodies were being transferred to them after being received by the Red Cross in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis. Israel says the bodies will need to undergo forensic testing before authorities can confirm their identities. Yarden Bibas, the boys' father and Shiri Bibas's husband, was released on Feb. 1 under the first phase of the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. He was held in a different part of Gaza than his wife and children, according to hostages who were with him in captivity and have since been freed. The Hamas leader in Gaza, Khalil al-Hayya, announced on Tuesday that the bodies of Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas would be among those returned this week. He also announced that six of the remaining living captives would be released this Saturday, including two who have been held in the Gaza Strip for about a decade. The Israeli prime minister's office confirmed it had reached an agreement on the releases during negotiations held in Cairo last week, but refrained from naming any of the hostages. Israel had long braced to learn the fate of Kfir Bibas, who was just shy of 9 months old when he was abducted along with his parents and brother Ariel, who was 4 at the time, from their kibbutz, Nir Oz. In late 2023, Hamas said that Shiri Bibas and the children had been killed by Israeli bombardments. Israel has yet to confirm their deaths. On Tuesday, the Bibas family said it was 'in turmoil' over the Hamas leader's announcement of the return of Shiri, Ariel and Kfir. 'Until we receive definitive confirmation, our journey is not over,' the family said in a statement. The Hostage and Missing Families Forum also named the six living hostages slated for release on Saturday: Eliya Cohen, Omer Shem Tov, Omer Wenkert, Tal Shoham, Hisham Al-Sayed and Avera Mengistu. 'While we feel profound relief at their homecoming, we are devastated by the news that the remains of four of our loved ones will be returned this Thursday,' it said in a statement Tuesday. Cohen, 27, Shem Tov, 22, and Wenkert, 23, were abducted from a music festival, while Shoham was taken from the community of Kibbutz Beeri, according to the group. Civilians Al-Sayed and Mengistu have been separately held in Gaza for about a decade after they were kidnapped while crossing the border in 2015 and 2014, respectively. About 1,200 people were killed and 251 were captured in the Oct. 7 attack, according to Israeli officials. The ensuing military offensive in Gaza has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, according to the local Hamas-run health ministry, and forcibly displaced most of its 2.3 million population. Saturday's handover, if successful, will mean that four hostages, all presumed dead, are still left in Gaza from the group of 33 scheduled for release under the first phase of the ceasefire deal. The fragile agreement was reached between Israel and Hamas on Jan. 19 and has so far remained on track with the help of Qatari and Egyptian mediators, despite earlier threats of derailment. During the first phase of the deal, which will last over a 42-day truce, Hamas has incrementally returned 19 Israeli hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees. Last week, Hamas reversed a warning it issued earlier to indefinitely postpone the hostage-prisoner swaps after both sides accused the other of violating the agreement. The deal was also overshadowed by President Donald Trump 's call to move Palestinians out of Gaza so it can be developed into a waterfront estate. Negotiations over the second stage of the ceasefire deal, originally slated to begin Feb. 4, will look at securing the release of the remaining 64 hostages and overseeing the administration of post-war Gaza. Reuters reported Tuesday that an Israeli team had traveled to Cairo, while the security cabinet cleared a high-level Israeli delegation to travel to Qatar to begin talks on the second phase. 'It will happen this week,' Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar told reporters in Jerusalem, according to Reuters. 'If we will see there is a constructive dialogue with a possible horizon of getting to an agreement (then) we will make this time framework longer,' he added.
Yahoo
14-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Meet the Israeli anarchist taking Hamas hostage fight to Netanyahu
With his trademark paramilitary-style black bomber jacket emblazoned with a highly provocative Star of David, Danny Elgarat is a hard man to miss. Certainly, the members of the Knesset's foreign affairs and security committee know him well. As he strides with slow purpose into the committee's Thursday afternoon meeting, their discomfort is palpable. Some of the politicians give him a wary nod of greeting; others stare down at their phones. At the entrance, security guards gather, eyeing him closely. As well they might: they have had to drag him out in the past. A former bomb squad police chief who is now a history teacher, Mr Elgarat is the man behind the militant side of Israel's hostage return movement. It only took him a few weeks after his brother Itzik, 69, was abducted on Oct 7 to decide that, in his view, the non-partisan, vigil-style gatherings organised by the mainstream Hostage and Missing Families Forum, which have claimed most international attention, were giving Benjamin Netanyahu a free pass. He and a group of supporters decided on a more direct course of action. The blocked roads and lit bonfires and smoke bombs in the streets, and the police responded with stun grenades, water cannons and cavalry charges. 'I haven't been arrested,' Mr Elgarat tells The Telegraph. 'But they've attacked me more than once.' He chuckles. 'Look, when I was a policeman, I was a policeman. Now, they call us anarchists, so I guess I'm an anarchist.' Alongside coordinating nightly disruptions in Tel Aviv, the 65-year-old makes a twice-weekly pilgrimage to the Knesset in Jerusalem, addressing whichever fringe committee will grant him a few minutes to speak. This time, he takes particular aim at Mr Netanyahu's warm reception of Donald Trump's 'Middle East Riviera' vision, saying it would be built 'on the bones of the kidnapped, on the bodies of the kidnapped'. He castigates the Israeli prime minister's reluctance to begin negotiations for phase two of the deal as evidence that he wants to 'sabotage' the agreement. 'The sacrificing to the death of dozens of Jews by the leaders of the Jewish state is unprecedented,' he informs them. 'No such thing has happened in Jewish history.' For good measure, he asks Knesset members who would rather not hear his message to leave, rather than 'playing with your phones'. There has never been a more important time to change to a more aggressive method of protest, he believes, citing this week's near-derailment of the hostage deal as proof. As for hundreds of families, it all started for Mr Elgarat with a phone call in the early morning of Oct 7 2023. His brother Itzik, a Danish-Israeli handyman and all-round bon vivant of Kibbutz Nir Oz, who liked nothing better than chatting in the bar, had been shot through the hand while struggling to keep the door of a safe room locked. Mr Elgarat was in the process of telling him how to fix a tourniquet when he heard loud shouts in Arabic, at which point Itzik cried: 'Danny, this is the end.' A signal from his phone was located in Gaza half an hour later. A sign of life was received in January last year, but in March, Hamas published a video in which they claimed Itzik was dead. Although the terrorist group has not provided visual proof of this, Mr Elgarat says the IDF has informed him that 'his life is in big danger'. Due to his age and having suffered a traumatic injury, the fact that Itzik was not on the initial hostage release list has been taken as an extremely bad sign. Itzik, who was a talented football player and supporter of Maccabi Tel Aviv, has a son and a daughter in Denmark, where he lived for 10 years. 'We are very, very worried,' Mr Elgarat says softly. 'We hope that he is alive, but if he is not alive we hope that we can get him back and bury him with all the honour we can.' As a police officer in the first and second intifadas, Mr Elgarat has seen his share of violence. Initially, he bought into the softer tone of protest adopted by the forum and its consistent presence in what is now referred to as Hostages Square in central Tel Aviv, adjacent to the IDF's headquarters. But he added: 'It was when I was in the United States and I heard the prime minister's speech in the UN where he said the only way the hostages come out is when Hamas surrenders – when I heard that I thought we need to be more aggressive, because he doesn't have any intention of bringing them out because of his coalition with [Itamar] Ben-Gvir and [Bezalel] Smotrich [Mr Netanyahu's hard-Right coalition partners].' Along with his supporters, he feels that the past two weeks have proved them right: that the glacial and tenuous progress of hostage releases shows they are not the priority. His decision to wear a Holocaust-style yellow Star of David, modified to include the date of Oct 7, is, to put it mildly, highly controversial in the Jewish world. But he believes that the emaciated state of the three hostages released last week is ample vindication. 'When they saw those three come out on Saturday, a lot of people got in touch with me and said: 'Danny, you're right.'' Mr Elgarat feels nothing but love for the other affected families – he just disagrees with their methods. 'They're singing in the square, they're speaking, they're doing yoga… This will not convince Netanyahu to bring them all home. He needs to see that public opinion is against him. He needs to see people on the street.' The result of this thinking is the Begin Bridge group, named after the walkway across one of Tel Aviv's main thoroughfares under which Mr Elgarat and like-minded hostage families protest on most nights. It's a noisy, disruptive affair: drums, whistles, loudhailers and accusatory placards in abundance, in stark contrast to the tone in Hostages Square, a couple of streets away. On Thursday, Mr Elgarat was having a rare night off from the protest to take part in a school event. This did not stop protesters invading the dual carriageway and bringing traffic to a halt no fewer than three times in 90 minutes. 'Show us your support,' they yelled at the vehicles through loudspeakers. It prompts a taxi driver in the front rank of stationary vehicles to get out and enthusiastically usher one of the protest's main voices, Mali Darvish, onto his roof, whereupon she recites the names of all the missing hostages, and between each one, the crowd shouts 'ach'shav', the Hebrew for 'now'. An irate commuter berates a nearby policeman for not taking any action to prevent the blockage. They give him short shrift, knowing that the blockage will probably only last a few minutes. On the weekend, however, it is a different story. Thousands of protesters gather, rather than the hundred-odd on Thursday, and the Tel Aviv police are often replaced with the quasi-military border police. They are more aggressive and probably come from communities less sympathetic to the hostages' cause. Among the crowd at Thursday's protest was 86-year-old Yocheved Lipschitz, the first hostage to be released in October 2023, who famously shook the hand of her Hamas captive and said 'shalom' as she was handed over. A lifelong peace activist, she clearly thought her time was better spent blocking the Begin road rather than chanting in Hostages Square, although she is involved with both groups. 'This is life now,' she said. 'They [the hostages] are there, and we are here. We have a voice and they have no voice. Until they return, I will be here.' Her British daughter, Dr Sharone Lifschitz, was in attendance, supporting her mother. For them, it is not only about showing solidarity with the other families. Yocheved's husband, Oded, is still a captive of Hamas. 'Some people feel you can negotiate with the government and others feel that it's very straightforward: that until they come back we have to pressure the government,' she said. The placards are as provocative as they come, with messages including 'crime minister', 'you're responsible' and 'Netanyahu is a sponsor of Hamas.' Among the protesters there are mordant suggestions that families of the forum adopt a more peaceful tone amid fear the government will discriminate against their loved ones when it comes to hostage release, a controversial claim that the government refutes. In one sense, the irate driver is exactly the person that Mr Elgarat and his comrades are targeting – less religious, mainstream Israelis who were not directly affected by Oct 7. While polls consistently show overwhelming support for a hostage release deal, the protest leader is convinced that Mr Netanyahu will not act until he sees it manifested on the streets. 'People continue to live like nothing has happened,' he said, 'watching reality TV and arguing over which song to choose for Eurovision.' 'We need an uprising. We need to stay here until Netanyahu does the deal.' It is a big call from someone on his 125th day of hunger strike, allowing himself only water during the day and a bowl of soup at night, and visibly tired. It is impossible to know which protest group Itzik would join. Given his easy-going nature – 'you could speak to him for five minutes and feel you've known him all your life,' says his brother – perhaps he would be tempted by the more peaceful tone of Hostages Square. But he is not free. So, for now, it is up to his brother, a tough man with a big heart, to lead the fight as he sees fit. Danny Elgarat is going to carry on doing things his way.
