π️Lonny's War Update- October 509, 2023 - February 26, 2025 π️
π️Day 509 that 63 of our hostages in Hamas captivity
**There is nothing more important than getting them home! NOTHING!**
“I’ve never met them,But I miss them. I’ve never met them,but I think of them every second. I’ve never met them,but they are my family. BRING THEM HOME NOW!!!”
We’re waiting for you, all of you.
A deal is the only way to bring
all the hostages home- the murdered for burial and the living for rehabilitation.
#BringThemHomeNow #TurnTheHorrorIntoHope
A deal is the only way to bring
all the hostages home- the murdered for burial and the living for rehabilitation.
#BringThemHomeNow #TurnTheHorrorIntoHope
There is no victory until all of the hostages are home!ΧΧΧ Χ Χ¦ΧΧΧ Χ’Χ Χ©ΧΧ ΧΧΧΧΧ€ΧΧ ΧΧΧΧͺ
Red Alerts - Missile, Rocket, Drone (UAV - unmanned aerial vehicles), and Terror Attacks and Death Announcements
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Hostage Updates
Today is one of the saddest days the country has felt since October 7. It brings back the darkest day of our history and has united the country in collective pain and empathy with tens of thousands lining the streets to say goodbye and pay final respects to the beautiful family which was taken by the brutal monsters. I don't have the words to express what I am feeling or the feelings of the country.
Yarden Bibas, in the funeral procession from the Israel pathological institute where the bodies of his wife and 2 boys were examined, said "through the window, I see a broken country. We will not rise or heal until the last of the hostages are brought home."
Just as the world remembers Shiri holding and protecting her precious boys Ariel and Kfir, they were buried in a single coffin to be held by Shiri forever.
- Message to Netanyahu and his entire corrupt and dysfunctional government:
We, the people of Israel and the Jewish People of the world, We will not forget, we will not forgive!!!!! - Knesset illuminated by orange lights in memory of murdered Bibas family
- Sister of Yarden Bibas decries ‘abuse’ after PM shares graphic details about murders of Shiri, Ariel and Kfir against family’s wishes
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at a graduation ceremony for cadets in the IDF Ground Forces officers' course, and holds up a photo of slain hostages Shiri, Kfir, and Ariel Bibas, February 23, 2025. (Screen capture via YouTube, used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)Ofri Bibas, sister of released hostage Yarden Bibas, slams Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as Israeli news outlets, social media users and public diplomats for detailing, against the family’s will, the murders in captivity of Yarden’s wife Shiri and young sons Ariel and Kfir.
Publishing such information over the family’s repeated requests was “abuse for its own sake of a family that has gone through 16 months of hell and still has the worst ahead,” writes Ofri Bibas on Facebook, a day before the funeral of her nephews and sister-in-law.
Netanyahu had described the young boys’ murder in graphic detail in a speech before the America Israel Public Action Committee on Tuesday, and, while holding a picture of the victims, at a military ceremony on Monday.
Following Netanyahu’s Monday speech, the Bibas family sent a cease and desist letter to Netanyahu’s and other government offices asking they stop publishing unapproved details of their murders, the Ynet news site reports.
The family also issued a statement via the Hostages and Missing Families Forum on Saturday requesting media outlets “stop adding details to the fact that Shiri and the kids were murdered by their captors.”
“As someone who sat in the room with [IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel] Hagari that day, I’ll write this: Yarden and the family approved, word for word, what the IDF spokesman said in the statement. Nothing more,” she writes.
She says that authorities were yet to complete their report on the murders, much less present it to the family, which, to its great consternation, nonetheless found out details from “the media, public diplomacy apparatus, Twitter users and yes, for whatever reason, even the prime minister.” link. Netanyahu is pure scum. He will use anyone and anything when it suits his personal purposes no matter the costs to others or the pain inflicted. His totally and purposely disregards the direct request of the Bibas family who have experienced the worst horrors anyone can imagine and because of Netanyahu's abandonment. He does all this in the name of preventing negotiations on Phase 2 and ending the war. The family has repeatedly asked him to stop and today said to him "Shut up!"Quotes from Ofri Bibas Levy, Yarden's sister in her eulogy for Shiri, Ariel and Kfir
“Forgiveness means accepting responsibility and committing to act differently, to learn from mistakes,” adds Bibas Levy. “There is no meaning to forgiveness before the failures are investigated, and all officials take responsibility. Our disaster as a nation and as a family should not have happened, and must never happen again.”“They could have saved you but preferred revenge. We lost. Our image of ‘victory’ will never happen. Our struggle against the enemies will be eternal, but we must always sanctify life, love of fellow humans, respect for the dead, and never leave anyone behind. Otherwise, we lose who we are,” she says.
- Knesset speaker holds minute of silence for Bibas family and other victims
Absolute disgrace on the part of the speaker, the government and all of the Knesset. No plenum, no committed, no meeting should have been held today. Every single one of these corrupt losers should have been in the streets with the rest of the country paying respects to the nation's tragedy while the coffin of Shiri, Ariel and Kfir passed through large areas of the country on their way to their final resting place. They should have been bowing their heads in shame and begging forgiveness to Yarden, the Bibas Family, the Lifshitz family and every one else who was killed on and after October 7, taking hostage, the families and in fact from everyone in the country for their abandonment and failures before October7 and every day since.
- US special envoy Steve Witkoff will not be coming to the region tomorrow, according to the Ynet news site.
Axios reports that Witkoff is delaying the trip to focus on US-led efforts to find a negotiated end to the war between Russia and Ukraine.
No new date has been given for the visit.
Witkoff had said on Sunday morning news shows that he could be coming to the region Wednesday to talk about extending the first phase of the deal between Israel and Hamas, and to discuss a second phase. link Saying Ukraine is a good excuse but it much more than that. Netanyahu convinced Trump that 'defeating Hamas' is the most important thing, especially after the failed return of Shiri Bibas' body. Steve Witkoff is very dedicated to the return of all the hostages but if he doesn't have the necessary backing of Trump, he will be hard pressed to be able to apply the necessary pressure on Netanyahu, the same kind of pressure that forced Netanyahu to agree to Phase 1 of the deal. Netanyahu has given strict orders to the negotiating team that they are not to discuss Phase 2 which means the end of the war. They only have a mandate from him to discuss extending Phase 1 whatever that means. - Four freed hostages pen letter to PM asking him to bring captive fathers home to their children
Four recently released hostages have penned a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in which they appeal for the government to “bring fathers back to their children.”
In the letter, Or Levy, Sagui Dekel-Chen, Ofer Calderon, and Tal Shoham explain that “we were not the only ones who went through hardships and upheavals during this period. Our families and children suffered [and are still suffering] from ongoing trauma, and at the time, endless uncertainty and longing.”
“The harm to them in our absence was significant,” the four say, adding that their children now require “long-term rehabilitation and constant support” to heal from what they endured.
They note that for some families — including Shoham’s — the trauma is compounded by the fact that their children were also taken hostage and were released during the November 2023 truce, while their fathers were left behind. Others, they say, witnessed the “horrific events” of the October 7, 2023 attacks and are now “forced to endure further harm in the form of the delay in returning their hostage fathers to Israel.”
“The State of Israel has a duty to put the welfare of children and the welfare of families first, and to do everything in its power so that the hostage fathers, some of whom are dead…are returned as soon as possible,” continues the letter.
They say that the children of the hostages deserve an absolute answer “about the basic question: ‘Where is dad?'”
“This is the least that can be done for us,” they write. “This is the essence of solidarity, of concern for others, and of thinking about the next generation.”
- **The Nighttime Dilemma at the Institute of Forensic Medicine – and the Shock at the Brutality | New Details**
Findings revealed that the terrorists murdered Kfir and Ariel Bibas, may they rest in peace, with their bare hands and mutilated their bodies in an attempt to cover up evidence. The team at the Institute of Forensic Medicine was surprised to discover that the body transferred to Israel was not Shiri Bibas, but an unidentified Gazan woman.
Thursday, staff at the Institute of Forensic Medicine were stunned by the results of the examination they conducted on the bodies of the deceased hostages returned to Israel. The medical team at Abu Kabir repeatedly examined the body that was transferred to Israel, which Hamas claimed was Shiri Bibas. At the same time, the findings revealed that the terrorists murdered Kfir and Ariel Bibas with their bare hands and mutilated their bodies in an attempt to cover up evidence.
By evening, it became clear at the Institute of Forensic Medicine that the fourth body transferred to Israel was not that of Shiri Bibas. After the information was relayed to the political echelon, the Hostage and Missing Persons Directorate, and the family, the team at Abu Kabir debated what to do with the information. Ultimately, it was decided to publish the details late at night rather than wait. Before the announcement, Israel updated the U.S. administration and clarified that Hamas had crossed a red line in their agreements.
Ariel Bibas, Shiri Bibas, Kfir Bibas
So far, security forces have not been able to locate the terrorists who harmed the Bibas family. The Shin Bet says they will reach these terrorists as well. Israel estimates that the murder of the Bibas family members occurred in November 2023. Hamas's claims of a misidentification are currently being investigated, and sources familiar with the details estimate that within the next 24 hours, the chances of Shiri's return to Israel will become clearer. (*note: Shiri's body was returned and verified - their funeral is today Wednesday)
Israel has vowed that Hamas's ploy will not go unanswered. However, the options are quite limited. Israel is currently focused on one thing: completing the phase of releasing the six hostages expected to be freed tomorrow.
IDF Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Daniel Hagari traveled overnight to Yarden Bibas to update him on the details. There, the former hostage requested that "the whole world know and be horrified by the way his family was murdered." Hagari stated that Israel had shared the autopsy findings of the returned bodies with the international community: "The whole world needs to know how Hamas operates."
Earlier in the day, the IDF Spokesperson held a special briefing for the media, where he accused: "Baby Kfir and 4-year-old Ariel were murdered in cold blood. The terrorists did not shoot them—they killed them with their bare hands. Afterward, they committed horrific acts to try to cover up their atrocities." The IDF Spokesperson said Hamas had violated the agreement and called for Shiri's immediate return—"Her non-return is a severe violation," Hagari said.
Ofri Bibas, Yarden's sister, shared her difficult feelings about the complex return of her nephews: "For Ariel and Kfir, and for Yarden, we are not asking for revenge right now. We are asking for Shiri. My sweet nephews were abducted from their home alive and murdered by a brutal terrorist organization in captivity. They did not deserve such a fate."
- Israeli official: Handover of bodies of 4 slain hostages likely tonight
Top row (L-R) Tsahi Idan and Ohad Yahalomi; Bottom row (L-R) Itzik Elgarat and Shlomo Mantzur (Courtesy)
The handover of the bodies of four slain hostages will likely happen tonight, an Israeli official tells The Times of Israel.
The bodies will be handed to the Egyptians, who will transfer them to Israel.
Hamas is expected to hand over Tsahi Idan, Ohad Yahalomi, Itzik Elgarat and Shlomo Mantzur.
Israel will release the 602 Palestinian prisoners that had been scheduled to be released on Saturday. link Wow! Netanyahu is such a great negotiator. He replaced the negotiating team with his closest cronies because he said they didn't know how to negotiate. He succeeded in bringing the 4 bodies back 1 day early! What a amazing job he did! In fact, it may not even happen today and will be according the original day of tomorrow as per the Phase 1 agreement. Netanyahu, the great deal maker.
He is so full of sh*t. He didn't do anything and is preventing the negotiating team from even discussing Phase 2 to get the rest of the 59 (after the 4 hostages killed will be returned tonight). He has all the time in the world because the deaths of the remaining living hostages' don't enter his equations. At this point, so many hostages have been killed, he doesn't see it impacting his image at all and that is what he cares about.
- **"When They Realized Alon Would Be Left Alone, They Didn’t Want to Leave"**
Alon Ohel and Eliya Cohen were abducted together from the "Death Shelter" and became soulmates during the approximately 500 days they were held captive by Hamas. Shortly after his release, Cohen called Alon’s parents and described the harsh conditions and their separation. Now, Alon’s brother emphasized the urgency to bring him home in an interview: "He sees shadows in his injured eye. Since November 2023, they’ve been in tunnels."
In recent weeks, the family of hostage Alon Ohel has been exposed to the harsh conditions in which he is being held captive. The most recent sign of life came over the weekend with the return of Eliya Cohen, who was abducted alongside Alon from the "Death Shelter." Upon his release, Cohen called the Ohel family and described the difficult conditions in which their son is being held. "500 days of complete uncertainty—we knew nothing. Now there’s certainty, and it gives us a little bit of a sense of him," said Alon’s brother, Ronen Ohel, in an interview this morning (Tuesday).
Alongside the excitement, the family expressed concern about the harsh conditions. "With the certainty came the shattering of denial or illusion. Until then, I could think positive thoughts about what was happening to him, but now that’s exploded in my face. I realized that the worst thing everyone imagines is actually happening," he emphasized in a conversation with Niv Raskin on *Morning News*.
**What did Eliya share?**
"About the strong bond between them—that’s what they had there in the end. Eliya said their separation was difficult. He told us they didn’t want to leave when they realized Alon would be left alone. I think about them returning here and feeling like they can’t fully come back while their brother is left behind."
**From what you’ve heard, can Alon see with his eye?**
"From what we understand now, he sees shadows. A lack of immediate treatment could lead to complete blindness. Since November 2023, they’ve been in tunnels and haven’t come out at all. They were bound, held in harsh conditions, and subjected to starvation. Now everyone knows what they’re going through there, and it’s concerning to see that we’re still not fully aware of the urgency. The clichΓ© of 'no time' is true, and somehow we’ve gotten used to it. Talks about 'phase two' have been delayed, and no one is surprised."
**Is he exposed to the media?**
"From what we’ve heard from those who returned, he doesn’t know what’s happening outside. Alon was abducted from the shelter in Re’im and doesn’t know exactly what happened there. They’re not exposed; they’re in the most difficult and urgent conditions."
**Now that you know exactly what he’s going through, how do you function?**
"It’s much more complicated. It’s hard to grasp that, during this interview, he’s alone in the tunnels, not eating, and bound."
**Did you hear Minister Strock prioritizing dismantling Hamas over returning all the hostages?**
"It’s sad to hear. These aren’t the values of the State of Israel. That opinion isn’t different from the other side’s preference for the enemy’s death over their own lives. Dismantling Hamas is such a complex issue, and it doesn’t contradict bringing back the hostages. The deal is just a stage—we have our whole lives to deal with them. We need to prioritize life and get them out."
- Released hostage says Ben Gvir’s comments worsened conditions in captivitySuccessful rescue mission of four captives in June led Hamas captors to tie hostages together in chains to obstruct future operations, says ex-hostage Eliya Cohen
Comments made by far-right MK Itamar Ben Gvir about Palestinian prisoners during his tenure as national security minister led Hamas to worsen the conditions of the hostages in Gaza, according to reported comments by a recently released captive.
The testimony was given by an unnamed former hostage, who was among the six released on Saturday, to Channel 13 news in a Monday evening report.
Upon becoming national security minister two years ago, Ben Gvir repeatedly railed against so-called luxury items in prisons, moving to ban fresh pita bread being served behind bars as well as to limit shower times for inmates. In the wake of the October 7, 2023, attack, he ordered new restrictions on security prisoners, including overcrowding and removal of beds. His policies have led civil rights organizations to petition the High Court of Justice.
Ben Gvir, alongside the rest of his ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit party, resigned from the government last month in protest of the hostage-ceasefire deal. He said his party would rejoin the government should fighting in Gaza resume.
Responding to the report, Ben Gvir wrote on X: “Channel 13 decided this evening to grant legitimacy to the horrors that Hamas committed against the hostages, with a report claiming that because of a change in prisoner conditions that I led, Hamas abused our hostages.
“It seems they forgot that the terrorists killed, raped and massacred Jews long before the [prison] reform. They don’t need any excuse to do that besides the fact that we exist,” Ben Gvir wrote.
“The essence of the conception is that if we just tolerate, bend over before the terrorists and lower our heads, they’ll do us the courtesy of stopping to kill Jews,” he continued. “The conception” is an umbrella term referring to the erroneous presumptions regarding Hamas’s intentions that enabled the October 7, 2023 massacre.
Tied together with chainsThe Channel 13 report also featured testimony from Eliya Cohen, who was among the six hostages released on Saturday, alongside Tal Shoham, Avera Mengistu, Omer Shem Tov, Omer Wenkert and Hisham al-Sayed.
Israeli hostages released February 22, 2025 (left to right): Tal Shoham, Avera Mengistu seen on stage in Rafah (Omar Al-Qattaa/AFP/Jehad Alshrafi/AP Photo); Eliya Cohen, Omer Shem Tov and Omer Wenkert on stage in Nuseirat (Abdel Kareem Hana/AP Photo); Hisham al-Sayed in Gaza (X screenshot)
Cohen said that after a rescue mission that freed four hostages — Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv — Hamas terrorists worsened the hostages’ conditions.
Cohen recalled that in order to obstruct future Israeli efforts to rescue hostages, the captors chained the abductees together.
Cohen also said he was separated on Tuesday from hostage Alon Ohel, who remains in captivity.
The families of the six released hostages held a press conference on Monday to tell of the dire conditions in which they were held during their captivity. The hostages said they were chained, starved and denied necessary medical treatment.
Hamas-led terrorists killed some 1,200 people and kidnapped 251, mostly civilians, during their invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are still holding 63 hostages, including 62 who were abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7. They include the bodies of at least 36 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Relatives of recently freed hostages Tal Shoham, Omer Wenkert, Eliya Cohen, and Omer Shem Tov hold a press conference at the Rabin Medical Center on February 23, 2025. (Paulina Patimer/Hostages Families Forum)
Hamas has so far released 30 hostages — 20 Israeli civilians, five soldiers and five Thai nationals — and the bodies of four slain Israeli captives — Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, and Oded Lifshitz — in the ceasefire that began in January.
The terror group freed 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that in the early weeks of the war.
Eight hostages have been rescued from captivity by troops alive, and the bodies of 41 have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors, and the body of a soldier who was killed in 2014.
The body of another soldier killed in 2014, Lt. Hadar Goldin, is still being held by Hamas, and is counted among the 63 hostages.
- As truce’s first stage winds down, families of hostages plead for more releasesCaptive’s mother to Netanyahu: ‘Free all hostages, in one batch, now’; father of hostage who returned earlier in day says no one should be allowed to prevent freedom for others
All of the 25 living hostages released during the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire-hostage deal, shown reunited with their families. Top row, from left: Karina Ariev, Liri Albag, Doron Steinbrecher, Emily Damari, Romi Gonen. 2nd row, from left: Gadi Mozes, Arbel Yehoud, Agam Berger, Naama Levy, Daniella Gilboa. 3rd row, from left: Ohad Ben Ami, Or Levy, Ofer Calderon, Yarden Bibas, Keith Siegel. 4th row, from left: Avera Mengistu, Sasha Troufanov, Iair Horn, Sagui Dekel-Chen, Eli Sharabi. Bottom row, from left: Hisham al-Sayed, Eliya Cohen, Omer Wenkert, Omer Shem Tov, Tal Shoham. (Photos by IDF and GPO)
Families of hostages held by terror groups in the Gaza Strip on Saturday urged the government to secure the freedom of all remaining captives as the last living hostages scheduled for release in the first stage of a troubled ceasefire deal with Hamas were set free.
At the weekly hostage support rally in Tel Aviv, the focal event for demonstrations on behalf of the captives, hostage mother Einav Zangauker called on leaders to negotiate the release of all the captives in one tranche, while the father of a captive who returned to Israel earlier the same day added his voice to the urgency of freeing those still languishing in Gaza.
Relatives of hostages panned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing him of being less concerned about the fate of the hostages than the Trump administration, and of putting the captives below his own political needs.
The three-stage ceasefire agreement, reached last month, halted some 15 months of fighting triggered by the October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel, when Hamas-led terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.
The deal requires the terror group to release all its hostages, Israel to release thousands of Palestinian security prisoners — including hundreds serving life sentences — and a halt to fighting in the Strip, followed by negotiations for a “sustainable calm” and IDF withdrawal from the enclave.
Only 30 living hostages have been released during the first phase, including five Thai nationals along with the bodies of some others. On Thursday, Hamas is to hand over four bodies, concluding the first phase of the ceasefire.
Protesters for the release of all hostages from Gaza demonstrate with a slogan highlighting the 505 days they have been in captivity, at Begin Gate in Tel Aviv, February 22, 2025. (Yael Gadot/Pro-Democracy Protest Movement)
Talks on the second phase, which were supposed to begin earlier this month, have not yet started. Under the terms of the deal, the first stage formula of hostages released in batches can be continued if negotiations on the next stages are underway.
Zangauker hailed the release of six hostages earlier in the day and said the hearts of all the hostage families are with the families of slain hostages Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, and Oded Lifshitz, whose bodies were returned — amid controversy — at the end of the week.
Though highlighting the joy in Israel at the day’s releases she told the Tel Aviv protest: “It must not be that the deal is stopped and that we return to fighting.”
Zangauker, whose son Matan is a hostage, noted that 63 hostages are still “in hell in Gaza.”
Protesters at Begin Gate in Tel Aviv on February 22, 2025, call for the release of all remaining hostages. Poster on the left reads: “The defender of Israel he is not,” referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Yoav Loeff / Pro-Democracy Protest movement)
“One batch, right away,” she urged.
Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, calls on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to proceed to the next phase of the deal and bring back her son and all the remaining hostages, at a protest in Tel Aviv on February 22, 2025. (Naama Zeevi Rivlin / Pro-Democracy Protest Movement)Zangauker denounced what she said is a “disconnected government” that is instead preparing for a return to the war. She charged that Netanyahu, who she said created the entire phased process, is “dragging his feet… trying to please his extremist coalition partners at the price of the blood of Matan and the rest of the hostages.
“Hostages first… All of them now,” she urged Netanyahu. “It can’t be that [US President Donald] Trump and envoy Steve Witkoff want this more than the prime minister,” she said, referring to the US president’s special envoy to the region. “Netanyahu, these are your citizens, abandoned on your watch.”
Trump has repeatedly spoken of returning “all the hostages” even at stages when only some were supposed to be set free under the terms of the deal, but without clarifying his intention. Other senior US officials have made similar remarks and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday posted to X that Hamas must free “all the hostages” or face its demise.
Witkoff, Trump’s envoy, was slated to meet Saturday night with Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, the Walla news site reported.
Netanyahu has not committed to the second phase, which would see Israel withdraw from Gaza and Hamas return the remaining living hostages. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has threatened to topple the government should it withdraw from the Strip, instead pushing for renewing the war to completely eradicate the terror group.
At Saturday’s Tel Aviv rally, held in what has been named Hostages Square, Gilad Korngold hailed the return from Hamas captivity of his son Tal Shoham that morning, “after 505 long days in which he breathed the air of hell.”
He thanked the government, Trump and the Austrian chancellor for securing the release of his son, a dual Israeli-Austrian citizen.
Gilad Korngold, the father of freed hostage Tal Shoham, speaks at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, hours after his son’s release, on February 22, 2025. (The Hostages and Missing Families Forum)Korngold pointed out that this was the last weekend of the hostage deal’s first phase.
“As of now, this is the last Saturday that we, the citizens of Israel, will get to see pictures of hostages embracing their loved ones,” said Korngold.
“We can and must get all the hostages out,” he said. “And we need all of you, with us, to make sure that no one — no one — thwarts the rest of the mission to release the hostages who are still suffering in Gaza.”
Ahead of his speech, Korngold and his wife Nitza met at Hostages Square with Sasha Troufanov, who was released the Saturday before, Hebrew media reported.
A block away, on Begin Road, hundreds of anti-government, pro-hostage deal protesters rallied in front of IDF headquarters.
Yehuda Cohen, whose soldier son Nimrod is slated for release only in the deal’s second phase, accused Netanyahu of consistently working to thwart any hostage deal since October 7, 2023, out of political expediency.
Yehuda Cohen, father of Israeli hostage Nimrod Cohen, during a rally calling for the release of hostages held captive since the October 7 onslaught, in Tel Aviv on December 28, 2024 (Jack GUEZ / AFP)Cohen thanked Trump and his envoy Witkoff for locking in the Gaza hostage deal. Witkoff was actively involved in negotiations even before Trump was sworn into office on January 20.
Meanwhile, said Cohen, “the criminally accused Netanyahu,” who has been indicted on several counts of graft, is running “endless circles to cover up his sins and crimes.”
“The criminal Netanyahu will do anything to please the war-monger Smotrich,” Cohen said. “The criminal Netanyahu will do anything to cover up his crimes against the State of Israel.”
In English, Cohen addressed the US president, pleading with him to help secure the remaining hostages’ release: “President Trump — we rely on you. Only you can do it.”
The fate of the ceasefire process was cast into further doubt later Saturday when Israel said it won’t release hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners who were supposed to be exchanged for the six hostages, citing the “humiliating ceremonies” staged by Hamas when hostages are handed over. Netanyahu said Israel would demand an end to the gauche fanfare that Hamas has put on as it hands hostages to the Red Cross, before resuming freeing prisoners.
Israeli hostages, from left to right, Eliya Cohen, Omer Shem and Omer Wenkert, are told to show Hamas-issued certificates before being handed over to the Red Cross in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, Saturday, February 22, 2025. (AP/Jehad Alshrafi)Hamas has said it won’t release the remaining captives without a lasting ceasefire and full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Netanyahu, with the backing of Trump’s administration, says he’s committed to destroying the terror group’s military and governing capacities and returning all hostages, goals widely seen as mutually exclusive.
Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are holding 63 hostages, including 62 of the 251 abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023. They include the bodies of at least 36 confirmed dead by the IDF
Hostage Updates
Today is one of the saddest days the country has felt since October 7. It brings back the darkest day of our history and has united the country in collective pain and empathy with tens of thousands lining the streets to say goodbye and pay final respects to the beautiful family which was taken by the brutal monsters. I don't have the words to express what I am feeling or the feelings of the country.
Yarden Bibas, in the funeral procession from the Israel pathological institute where the bodies of his wife and 2 boys were examined, said "through the window, I see a broken country. We will not rise or heal until the last of the hostages are brought home."Just as the world remembers Shiri holding and protecting her precious boys Ariel and Kfir, they were buried in a single coffin to be held by Shiri forever.- Message to Netanyahu and his entire corrupt and dysfunctional government:
We, the people of Israel and the Jewish People of the world, We will not forget, we will not forgive!!!!! - Knesset illuminated by orange lights in memory of murdered Bibas family
- Sister of Yarden Bibas decries ‘abuse’ after PM shares graphic details about murders of Shiri, Ariel and Kfir against family’s wishesPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at a graduation ceremony for cadets in the IDF Ground Forces officers' course, and holds up a photo of slain hostages Shiri, Kfir, and Ariel Bibas, February 23, 2025. (Screen capture via YouTube, used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)Ofri Bibas, sister of released hostage Yarden Bibas, slams Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as Israeli news outlets, social media users and public diplomats for detailing, against the family’s will, the murders in captivity of Yarden’s wife Shiri and young sons Ariel and Kfir.
Publishing such information over the family’s repeated requests was “abuse for its own sake of a family that has gone through 16 months of hell and still has the worst ahead,” writes Ofri Bibas on Facebook, a day before the funeral of her nephews and sister-in-law.
Netanyahu had described the young boys’ murder in graphic detail in a speech before the America Israel Public Action Committee on Tuesday, and, while holding a picture of the victims, at a military ceremony on Monday.
Following Netanyahu’s Monday speech, the Bibas family sent a cease and desist letter to Netanyahu’s and other government offices asking they stop publishing unapproved details of their murders, the Ynet news site reports.
The family also issued a statement via the Hostages and Missing Families Forum on Saturday requesting media outlets “stop adding details to the fact that Shiri and the kids were murdered by their captors.”
“As someone who sat in the room with [IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel] Hagari that day, I’ll write this: Yarden and the family approved, word for word, what the IDF spokesman said in the statement. Nothing more,” she writes.
She says that authorities were yet to complete their report on the murders, much less present it to the family, which, to its great consternation, nonetheless found out details from “the media, public diplomacy apparatus, Twitter users and yes, for whatever reason, even the prime minister.” link. Netanyahu is pure scum. He will use anyone and anything when it suits his personal purposes no matter the costs to others or the pain inflicted. His totally and purposely disregards the direct request of the Bibas family who have experienced the worst horrors anyone can imagine and because of Netanyahu's abandonment. He does all this in the name of preventing negotiations on Phase 2 and ending the war. The family has repeatedly asked him to stop and today said to him "Shut up!"Quotes from Ofri Bibas Levy, Yarden's sister in her eulogy for Shiri, Ariel and Kfir“Forgiveness means accepting responsibility and committing to act differently, to learn from mistakes,” adds Bibas Levy. “There is no meaning to forgiveness before the failures are investigated, and all officials take responsibility. Our disaster as a nation and as a family should not have happened, and must never happen again.”“They could have saved you but preferred revenge. We lost. Our image of ‘victory’ will never happen. Our struggle against the enemies will be eternal, but we must always sanctify life, love of fellow humans, respect for the dead, and never leave anyone behind. Otherwise, we lose who we are,” she says. - Knesset speaker holds minute of silence for Bibas family and other victims
Absolute disgrace on the part of the speaker, the government and all of the Knesset. No plenum, no committed, no meeting should have been held today. Every single one of these corrupt losers should have been in the streets with the rest of the country paying respects to the nation's tragedy while the coffin of Shiri, Ariel and Kfir passed through large areas of the country on their way to their final resting place. They should have been bowing their heads in shame and begging forgiveness to Yarden, the Bibas Family, the Lifshitz family and every one else who was killed on and after October 7, taking hostage, the families and in fact from everyone in the country for their abandonment and failures before October7 and every day since.
- US special envoy Steve Witkoff will not be coming to the region tomorrow, according to the Ynet news site.
Axios reports that Witkoff is delaying the trip to focus on US-led efforts to find a negotiated end to the war between Russia and Ukraine.
No new date has been given for the visit.
Witkoff had said on Sunday morning news shows that he could be coming to the region Wednesday to talk about extending the first phase of the deal between Israel and Hamas, and to discuss a second phase. link Saying Ukraine is a good excuse but it much more than that. Netanyahu convinced Trump that 'defeating Hamas' is the most important thing, especially after the failed return of Shiri Bibas' body. Steve Witkoff is very dedicated to the return of all the hostages but if he doesn't have the necessary backing of Trump, he will be hard pressed to be able to apply the necessary pressure on Netanyahu, the same kind of pressure that forced Netanyahu to agree to Phase 1 of the deal. Netanyahu has given strict orders to the negotiating team that they are not to discuss Phase 2 which means the end of the war. They only have a mandate from him to discuss extending Phase 1 whatever that means. - Four freed hostages pen letter to PM asking him to bring captive fathers home to their children
Four recently released hostages have penned a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in which they appeal for the government to “bring fathers back to their children.”
In the letter, Or Levy, Sagui Dekel-Chen, Ofer Calderon, and Tal Shoham explain that “we were not the only ones who went through hardships and upheavals during this period. Our families and children suffered [and are still suffering] from ongoing trauma, and at the time, endless uncertainty and longing.”
“The harm to them in our absence was significant,” the four say, adding that their children now require “long-term rehabilitation and constant support” to heal from what they endured.
They note that for some families — including Shoham’s — the trauma is compounded by the fact that their children were also taken hostage and were released during the November 2023 truce, while their fathers were left behind. Others, they say, witnessed the “horrific events” of the October 7, 2023 attacks and are now “forced to endure further harm in the form of the delay in returning their hostage fathers to Israel.”
“The State of Israel has a duty to put the welfare of children and the welfare of families first, and to do everything in its power so that the hostage fathers, some of whom are dead…are returned as soon as possible,” continues the letter.
They say that the children of the hostages deserve an absolute answer “about the basic question: ‘Where is dad?'”
“This is the least that can be done for us,” they write. “This is the essence of solidarity, of concern for others, and of thinking about the next generation.” - **The Nighttime Dilemma at the Institute of Forensic Medicine – and the Shock at the Brutality | New Details**Findings revealed that the terrorists murdered Kfir and Ariel Bibas, may they rest in peace, with their bare hands and mutilated their bodies in an attempt to cover up evidence. The team at the Institute of Forensic Medicine was surprised to discover that the body transferred to Israel was not Shiri Bibas, but an unidentified Gazan woman.Thursday, staff at the Institute of Forensic Medicine were stunned by the results of the examination they conducted on the bodies of the deceased hostages returned to Israel. The medical team at Abu Kabir repeatedly examined the body that was transferred to Israel, which Hamas claimed was Shiri Bibas. At the same time, the findings revealed that the terrorists murdered Kfir and Ariel Bibas with their bare hands and mutilated their bodies in an attempt to cover up evidence.By evening, it became clear at the Institute of Forensic Medicine that the fourth body transferred to Israel was not that of Shiri Bibas. After the information was relayed to the political echelon, the Hostage and Missing Persons Directorate, and the family, the team at Abu Kabir debated what to do with the information. Ultimately, it was decided to publish the details late at night rather than wait. Before the announcement, Israel updated the U.S. administration and clarified that Hamas had crossed a red line in their agreements.Ariel Bibas, Shiri Bibas, Kfir BibasSo far, security forces have not been able to locate the terrorists who harmed the Bibas family. The Shin Bet says they will reach these terrorists as well. Israel estimates that the murder of the Bibas family members occurred in November 2023. Hamas's claims of a misidentification are currently being investigated, and sources familiar with the details estimate that within the next 24 hours, the chances of Shiri's return to Israel will become clearer. (*note: Shiri's body was returned and verified - their funeral is today Wednesday)Israel has vowed that Hamas's ploy will not go unanswered. However, the options are quite limited. Israel is currently focused on one thing: completing the phase of releasing the six hostages expected to be freed tomorrow.IDF Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Daniel Hagari traveled overnight to Yarden Bibas to update him on the details. There, the former hostage requested that "the whole world know and be horrified by the way his family was murdered." Hagari stated that Israel had shared the autopsy findings of the returned bodies with the international community: "The whole world needs to know how Hamas operates."Earlier in the day, the IDF Spokesperson held a special briefing for the media, where he accused: "Baby Kfir and 4-year-old Ariel were murdered in cold blood. The terrorists did not shoot them—they killed them with their bare hands. Afterward, they committed horrific acts to try to cover up their atrocities." The IDF Spokesperson said Hamas had violated the agreement and called for Shiri's immediate return—"Her non-return is a severe violation," Hagari said.Ofri Bibas, Yarden's sister, shared her difficult feelings about the complex return of her nephews: "For Ariel and Kfir, and for Yarden, we are not asking for revenge right now. We are asking for Shiri. My sweet nephews were abducted from their home alive and murdered by a brutal terrorist organization in captivity. They did not deserve such a fate."
- Israeli official: Handover of bodies of 4 slain hostages likely tonightTop row (L-R) Tsahi Idan and Ohad Yahalomi; Bottom row (L-R) Itzik Elgarat and Shlomo Mantzur (Courtesy)
The handover of the bodies of four slain hostages will likely happen tonight, an Israeli official tells The Times of Israel.
The bodies will be handed to the Egyptians, who will transfer them to Israel.
Hamas is expected to hand over Tsahi Idan, Ohad Yahalomi, Itzik Elgarat and Shlomo Mantzur.
Israel will release the 602 Palestinian prisoners that had been scheduled to be released on Saturday. link Wow! Netanyahu is such a great negotiator. He replaced the negotiating team with his closest cronies because he said they didn't know how to negotiate. He succeeded in bringing the 4 bodies back 1 day early! What a amazing job he did! In fact, it may not even happen today and will be according the original day of tomorrow as per the Phase 1 agreement. Netanyahu, the great deal maker.
He is so full of sh*t. He didn't do anything and is preventing the negotiating team from even discussing Phase 2 to get the rest of the 59 (after the 4 hostages killed will be returned tonight). He has all the time in the world because the deaths of the remaining living hostages' don't enter his equations. At this point, so many hostages have been killed, he doesn't see it impacting his image at all and that is what he cares about. - **"When They Realized Alon Would Be Left Alone, They Didn’t Want to Leave"**Alon Ohel and Eliya Cohen were abducted together from the "Death Shelter" and became soulmates during the approximately 500 days they were held captive by Hamas. Shortly after his release, Cohen called Alon’s parents and described the harsh conditions and their separation. Now, Alon’s brother emphasized the urgency to bring him home in an interview: "He sees shadows in his injured eye. Since November 2023, they’ve been in tunnels."In recent weeks, the family of hostage Alon Ohel has been exposed to the harsh conditions in which he is being held captive. The most recent sign of life came over the weekend with the return of Eliya Cohen, who was abducted alongside Alon from the "Death Shelter." Upon his release, Cohen called the Ohel family and described the difficult conditions in which their son is being held. "500 days of complete uncertainty—we knew nothing. Now there’s certainty, and it gives us a little bit of a sense of him," said Alon’s brother, Ronen Ohel, in an interview this morning (Tuesday).Alongside the excitement, the family expressed concern about the harsh conditions. "With the certainty came the shattering of denial or illusion. Until then, I could think positive thoughts about what was happening to him, but now that’s exploded in my face. I realized that the worst thing everyone imagines is actually happening," he emphasized in a conversation with Niv Raskin on *Morning News*.**What did Eliya share?**"About the strong bond between them—that’s what they had there in the end. Eliya said their separation was difficult. He told us they didn’t want to leave when they realized Alon would be left alone. I think about them returning here and feeling like they can’t fully come back while their brother is left behind."**From what you’ve heard, can Alon see with his eye?**"From what we understand now, he sees shadows. A lack of immediate treatment could lead to complete blindness. Since November 2023, they’ve been in tunnels and haven’t come out at all. They were bound, held in harsh conditions, and subjected to starvation. Now everyone knows what they’re going through there, and it’s concerning to see that we’re still not fully aware of the urgency. The clichΓ© of 'no time' is true, and somehow we’ve gotten used to it. Talks about 'phase two' have been delayed, and no one is surprised."**Is he exposed to the media?**"From what we’ve heard from those who returned, he doesn’t know what’s happening outside. Alon was abducted from the shelter in Re’im and doesn’t know exactly what happened there. They’re not exposed; they’re in the most difficult and urgent conditions."**Now that you know exactly what he’s going through, how do you function?**"It’s much more complicated. It’s hard to grasp that, during this interview, he’s alone in the tunnels, not eating, and bound."**Did you hear Minister Strock prioritizing dismantling Hamas over returning all the hostages?**"It’s sad to hear. These aren’t the values of the State of Israel. That opinion isn’t different from the other side’s preference for the enemy’s death over their own lives. Dismantling Hamas is such a complex issue, and it doesn’t contradict bringing back the hostages. The deal is just a stage—we have our whole lives to deal with them. We need to prioritize life and get them out."
- Released hostage says Ben Gvir’s comments worsened conditions in captivitySuccessful rescue mission of four captives in June led Hamas captors to tie hostages together in chains to obstruct future operations, says ex-hostage Eliya CohenComments made by far-right MK Itamar Ben Gvir about Palestinian prisoners during his tenure as national security minister led Hamas to worsen the conditions of the hostages in Gaza, according to reported comments by a recently released captive.The testimony was given by an unnamed former hostage, who was among the six released on Saturday, to Channel 13 news in a Monday evening report.Upon becoming national security minister two years ago, Ben Gvir repeatedly railed against so-called luxury items in prisons, moving to ban fresh pita bread being served behind bars as well as to limit shower times for inmates. In the wake of the October 7, 2023, attack, he ordered new restrictions on security prisoners, including overcrowding and removal of beds. His policies have led civil rights organizations to petition the High Court of Justice.Ben Gvir, alongside the rest of his ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit party, resigned from the government last month in protest of the hostage-ceasefire deal. He said his party would rejoin the government should fighting in Gaza resume.Responding to the report, Ben Gvir wrote on X: “Channel 13 decided this evening to grant legitimacy to the horrors that Hamas committed against the hostages, with a report claiming that because of a change in prisoner conditions that I led, Hamas abused our hostages.“It seems they forgot that the terrorists killed, raped and massacred Jews long before the [prison] reform. They don’t need any excuse to do that besides the fact that we exist,” Ben Gvir wrote.“The essence of the conception is that if we just tolerate, bend over before the terrorists and lower our heads, they’ll do us the courtesy of stopping to kill Jews,” he continued. “The conception” is an umbrella term referring to the erroneous presumptions regarding Hamas’s intentions that enabled the October 7, 2023 massacre.Tied together with chainsThe Channel 13 report also featured testimony from Eliya Cohen, who was among the six hostages released on Saturday, alongside Tal Shoham, Avera Mengistu, Omer Shem Tov, Omer Wenkert and Hisham al-Sayed.Israeli hostages released February 22, 2025 (left to right): Tal Shoham, Avera Mengistu seen on stage in Rafah (Omar Al-Qattaa/AFP/Jehad Alshrafi/AP Photo); Eliya Cohen, Omer Shem Tov and Omer Wenkert on stage in Nuseirat (Abdel Kareem Hana/AP Photo); Hisham al-Sayed in Gaza (X screenshot)Cohen said that after a rescue mission that freed four hostages — Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv — Hamas terrorists worsened the hostages’ conditions.Cohen recalled that in order to obstruct future Israeli efforts to rescue hostages, the captors chained the abductees together.Cohen also said he was separated on Tuesday from hostage Alon Ohel, who remains in captivity.The families of the six released hostages held a press conference on Monday to tell of the dire conditions in which they were held during their captivity. The hostages said they were chained, starved and denied necessary medical treatment.Hamas-led terrorists killed some 1,200 people and kidnapped 251, mostly civilians, during their invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023.Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are still holding 63 hostages, including 62 who were abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7. They include the bodies of at least 36 confirmed dead by the IDF.Relatives of recently freed hostages Tal Shoham, Omer Wenkert, Eliya Cohen, and Omer Shem Tov hold a press conference at the Rabin Medical Center on February 23, 2025. (Paulina Patimer/Hostages Families Forum)Hamas has so far released 30 hostages — 20 Israeli civilians, five soldiers and five Thai nationals — and the bodies of four slain Israeli captives — Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, and Oded Lifshitz — in the ceasefire that began in January.The terror group freed 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that in the early weeks of the war.Eight hostages have been rescued from captivity by troops alive, and the bodies of 41 have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors, and the body of a soldier who was killed in 2014.The body of another soldier killed in 2014, Lt. Hadar Goldin, is still being held by Hamas, and is counted among the 63 hostages.
- As truce’s first stage winds down, families of hostages plead for more releasesCaptive’s mother to Netanyahu: ‘Free all hostages, in one batch, now’; father of hostage who returned earlier in day says no one should be allowed to prevent freedom for othersAll of the 25 living hostages released during the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire-hostage deal, shown reunited with their families. Top row, from left: Karina Ariev, Liri Albag, Doron Steinbrecher, Emily Damari, Romi Gonen. 2nd row, from left: Gadi Mozes, Arbel Yehoud, Agam Berger, Naama Levy, Daniella Gilboa. 3rd row, from left: Ohad Ben Ami, Or Levy, Ofer Calderon, Yarden Bibas, Keith Siegel. 4th row, from left: Avera Mengistu, Sasha Troufanov, Iair Horn, Sagui Dekel-Chen, Eli Sharabi. Bottom row, from left: Hisham al-Sayed, Eliya Cohen, Omer Wenkert, Omer Shem Tov, Tal Shoham. (Photos by IDF and GPO)Families of hostages held by terror groups in the Gaza Strip on Saturday urged the government to secure the freedom of all remaining captives as the last living hostages scheduled for release in the first stage of a troubled ceasefire deal with Hamas were set free.At the weekly hostage support rally in Tel Aviv, the focal event for demonstrations on behalf of the captives, hostage mother Einav Zangauker called on leaders to negotiate the release of all the captives in one tranche, while the father of a captive who returned to Israel earlier the same day added his voice to the urgency of freeing those still languishing in Gaza.Relatives of hostages panned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing him of being less concerned about the fate of the hostages than the Trump administration, and of putting the captives below his own political needs.The three-stage ceasefire agreement, reached last month, halted some 15 months of fighting triggered by the October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel, when Hamas-led terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.The deal requires the terror group to release all its hostages, Israel to release thousands of Palestinian security prisoners — including hundreds serving life sentences — and a halt to fighting in the Strip, followed by negotiations for a “sustainable calm” and IDF withdrawal from the enclave.Only 30 living hostages have been released during the first phase, including five Thai nationals along with the bodies of some others. On Thursday, Hamas is to hand over four bodies, concluding the first phase of the ceasefire.Protesters for the release of all hostages from Gaza demonstrate with a slogan highlighting the 505 days they have been in captivity, at Begin Gate in Tel Aviv, February 22, 2025. (Yael Gadot/Pro-Democracy Protest Movement)Talks on the second phase, which were supposed to begin earlier this month, have not yet started. Under the terms of the deal, the first stage formula of hostages released in batches can be continued if negotiations on the next stages are underway.Zangauker hailed the release of six hostages earlier in the day and said the hearts of all the hostage families are with the families of slain hostages Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, and Oded Lifshitz, whose bodies were returned — amid controversy — at the end of the week.Though highlighting the joy in Israel at the day’s releases she told the Tel Aviv protest: “It must not be that the deal is stopped and that we return to fighting.”Zangauker, whose son Matan is a hostage, noted that 63 hostages are still “in hell in Gaza.”
Protesters at Begin Gate in Tel Aviv on February 22, 2025, call for the release of all remaining hostages. Poster on the left reads: “The defender of Israel he is not,” referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Yoav Loeff / Pro-Democracy Protest movement)
“One batch, right away,” she urged.
Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, calls on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to proceed to the next phase of the deal and bring back her son and all the remaining hostages, at a protest in Tel Aviv on February 22, 2025. (Naama Zeevi Rivlin / Pro-Democracy Protest Movement)Zangauker denounced what she said is a “disconnected government” that is instead preparing for a return to the war. She charged that Netanyahu, who she said created the entire phased process, is “dragging his feet… trying to please his extremist coalition partners at the price of the blood of Matan and the rest of the hostages.
“Hostages first… All of them now,” she urged Netanyahu. “It can’t be that [US President Donald] Trump and envoy Steve Witkoff want this more than the prime minister,” she said, referring to the US president’s special envoy to the region. “Netanyahu, these are your citizens, abandoned on your watch.”
Trump has repeatedly spoken of returning “all the hostages” even at stages when only some were supposed to be set free under the terms of the deal, but without clarifying his intention. Other senior US officials have made similar remarks and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday posted to X that Hamas must free “all the hostages” or face its demise.
Witkoff, Trump’s envoy, was slated to meet Saturday night with Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, the Walla news site reported.
Netanyahu has not committed to the second phase, which would see Israel withdraw from Gaza and Hamas return the remaining living hostages. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has threatened to topple the government should it withdraw from the Strip, instead pushing for renewing the war to completely eradicate the terror group.
At Saturday’s Tel Aviv rally, held in what has been named Hostages Square, Gilad Korngold hailed the return from Hamas captivity of his son Tal Shoham that morning, “after 505 long days in which he breathed the air of hell.”
He thanked the government, Trump and the Austrian chancellor for securing the release of his son, a dual Israeli-Austrian citizen.
Gilad Korngold, the father of freed hostage Tal Shoham, speaks at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, hours after his son’s release, on February 22, 2025. (The Hostages and Missing Families Forum)Korngold pointed out that this was the last weekend of the hostage deal’s first phase.
“As of now, this is the last Saturday that we, the citizens of Israel, will get to see pictures of hostages embracing their loved ones,” said Korngold.
“We can and must get all the hostages out,” he said. “And we need all of you, with us, to make sure that no one — no one — thwarts the rest of the mission to release the hostages who are still suffering in Gaza.”
Ahead of his speech, Korngold and his wife Nitza met at Hostages Square with Sasha Troufanov, who was released the Saturday before, Hebrew media reported.
A block away, on Begin Road, hundreds of anti-government, pro-hostage deal protesters rallied in front of IDF headquarters.
Yehuda Cohen, whose soldier son Nimrod is slated for release only in the deal’s second phase, accused Netanyahu of consistently working to thwart any hostage deal since October 7, 2023, out of political expediency.Yehuda Cohen, father of Israeli hostage Nimrod Cohen, during a rally calling for the release of hostages held captive since the October 7 onslaught, in Tel Aviv on December 28, 2024 (Jack GUEZ / AFP)Cohen thanked Trump and his envoy Witkoff for locking in the Gaza hostage deal. Witkoff was actively involved in negotiations even before Trump was sworn into office on January 20.
Meanwhile, said Cohen, “the criminally accused Netanyahu,” who has been indicted on several counts of graft, is running “endless circles to cover up his sins and crimes.”
“The criminal Netanyahu will do anything to please the war-monger Smotrich,” Cohen said. “The criminal Netanyahu will do anything to cover up his crimes against the State of Israel.”
In English, Cohen addressed the US president, pleading with him to help secure the remaining hostages’ release: “President Trump — we rely on you. Only you can do it.”
The fate of the ceasefire process was cast into further doubt later Saturday when Israel said it won’t release hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners who were supposed to be exchanged for the six hostages, citing the “humiliating ceremonies” staged by Hamas when hostages are handed over. Netanyahu said Israel would demand an end to the gauche fanfare that Hamas has put on as it hands hostages to the Red Cross, before resuming freeing prisoners.
Israeli hostages, from left to right, Eliya Cohen, Omer Shem and Omer Wenkert, are told to show Hamas-issued certificates before being handed over to the Red Cross in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, Saturday, February 22, 2025. (AP/Jehad Alshrafi)Hamas has said it won’t release the remaining captives without a lasting ceasefire and full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Netanyahu, with the backing of Trump’s administration, says he’s committed to destroying the terror group’s military and governing capacities and returning all hostages, goals widely seen as mutually exclusive.
Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are holding 63 hostages, including 62 of the 251 abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023. They include the bodies of at least 36 confirmed dead by the IDF
Gaza and the South
- Washington, Lapid presents ‘day after’ plan for extended Egyptian guardianship of Gaza
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid presents a plan for the post-war Gaza Strip, in Washington DC, February 25, 2025. (Screenshot/FDD)
Speaking in Washington DC, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid presents a plan for Gaza for the “day after” Hamas, envisioning an extended Egyptian guardianship of the Strip.
“Israel cannot agree to Hamas remaining in power,” says the former prime minister. “The Palestinian Authority is neither willing nor able to manage Gaza in the near future. Israeli occupation is neither desirable nor possible. A constant state of chaos is both a security threat and a humanitarian disaster.”
The plan would have Egypt take responsibility for managing Gaza for 8 years, with the option to extend to 15 years.
In exchange, Cairo would have its foreign debt paid off by the international community. Lapid argues that if Egypt’s economy does not recover, the regime’s “leadership is at risk. That is bad news for us all.”
Egyptian troops would be deployed to Gaza alongside forces from Gulf states, during which time “the conditions for self-governance in Gaza will be created and the process of the total demilitarization of Gaza will be completed.”
Immediate security threats would be handled by a joint Israel-Egypt-US mechanism.
Over the 8 years of Egyptian guardianship, the Palestinian Authority would undergo significant reforms in corruption, support for terrorism, and education in order to prepare for eventually assuming control of Gaza.
“Egypt is a key strategic partner and a reliable ally for almost fifty years,” says Lapid, speaking at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “A strong, moderate, pragmatic Sunni state and a crucial player in the region. President [Abdel Fattah] el-Sissi is a stabilizing force in the Middle East and Africa. He is a long-time fighter against religious fanaticism.”
Lapid calls for the completion of the ceasefire deal with Hamas and the release of all the hostages held in Gaza.
He backs elements of the Donald Trump vision for Gaza, in which Gazans are free to emigrate if they so choose, and the US will oversee massive investment into Gaza. At the same time, he notes that Egypt wants to avoid the transfer of Gazans into Egypt. Lapid does not call for Gazans to be evicted.
Lapid presented the plan to the top levels of the Trump administration, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel.Egypt said to reject Lapid’s proposal for it to administer Gaza for years to come
Egypt rejects a proposal presented by Opposition Leader Yair Lapid today that would see Cairo taking over management of the Gaza Strip for 8 years, reports the Saudi state-owned Al Arabiya network.Egyptian sources tell the outlet that Palestinians will run the Strip, and that “Egypt will not be led by an attempt to administer Gaza.”
MOVING FORWARD
Lapid’s proposal to hand over Gaza to Egypt for 15 years was creative and out-of-the-box, but it also demonstrates a complete ignorance of the realities of the Arab world. Egypt immediately rejected Lapid’s suggestion and said that Egypt will never take responsibility for Gaza BECAUSE GAZA BELONGS TO THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE (Trump needs to understand this as well). This might be hard for Israelis (and Trump) to grasp, but Gaza is part of Palestine and will be part of the State of Palestine that eventually will be recognized by the State of Israel.
October 7 should have been a wake-up call for Israelis that the occupation must end and that Israel cannot deny the right of the Palestinian people to a state of their own in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967. I understand that we are all still in a state of deep trauma. I understand that the majority of Israelis today reject the idea of a Palestinian state. But the reality of more than 7 million Israeli Jews and more than 7 million Palestinian Arabs living on the land between the River and the Sea is much stronger and compelling than the current mood of Israeli public opinion. Anyone is who is a genuine leader (unlike the so-called leaders that we now have) understands that leaders shape public opinion, they don’t run after it. Even leaders of the so-called left in Israel, like Yair Golan, are afraid to speak the words “two states” because he is afraid of public opinion, or because his so-called “strategic advisors” tell him not to speak about a Palestinian state. Yair Golan – that is a failure of your leadership and hints that perhaps you don’t have what it takes to actually be a leader.
We (Israelis and Palestinians) need new leaders. We need leaders who have the confidence to know that the conflict in this land which has witnessed the killing of each other for more than one hundred years must come to an end. We can no longer allow the extremists on both sides to determine our future. There are two people living on this land and neither will vacate the land for the other. Both peoples see this land as their rightful homeland and that will not change. There are no military or security solutions to this conflict. There are only political solutions which require leadership. There are security realities that must be dealt with. Both Israelis and Palestinians must live with security, freedom, and dignity. Both sides must respect the right of the other for self-determination and national expression on a designated territory. But peace will be built by cooperation, not by walls and fences that prevent people from interacting. Political separation – YES. Cross border cooperation – ABSOLUTELY!
This is a call for leadership. It is a call for leadership on both sides. It is a call for Israelis to understand that the fastest path to security is through recognizing the right of the Palestinian people to establish their state in Palestine. It is a call for Palestinians to end their foolish ant-normalization campaign in which they even boycott Israelis who are working against the occupation and support Palestinian freedom. It is a call for Palestinians to stop denying Israel’s right to exist just as Israelis must stop denying the existence of the Palestinian people. It is a call for both of our peoples to wake up from the trauma of the past 15 months and move us from trauma to facing reality head-on with the understanding that only looking back to the past will never allow us to move forward to a new future.
This is an invitation to all Israelis and all Palestinians to begin to build partnerships of understanding so that we can dispel the myth that while “we” want peace, the people on the other side do not. We will get there, even if it looks very bleak right now. We will get there because we have no other real choice. It is time to move from the concept of the war of no choice to the concept of the peace of no choice. (Gershon Baskin, February 26, 2025)
Gaza reconstruction needs political clarity, stability, UAE official says
Anwar Gargash, the diplomatic adviser to the UAE’s president, says a Gaza reconstruction plan cannot happen without a clear path to a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians.
Investment in the project would need political stability, he adds in remarks to the Investopia 2025 conference in Abu Dhabi.
“Gaza does need a reconstruction plan, a massive one, but that reconstruction plan cannot really take place without a clear path to a two-state solution. So, clearly here, you need political stability of a roadmap in order for these big investments to come to place,” Gargash says.
Arab states are weighing a post-war plan for Gaza to counter US President Donald Trump’s proposal to redevelop the strip under US control and displace Palestinians, a prospect that has angered regional leaders. The mainly Egyptian proposal may include up to $20 billion in funding over three years from the region, sources familiar with the discussions have said.
Egypt rejects a proposal presented by Opposition Leader Yair Lapid today that would see Cairo taking over management of the Gaza Strip for 8 years, reports the Saudi state-owned Al Arabiya network.
Egyptian sources tell the outlet that Palestinians will run the Strip, and that “Egypt will not be led by an attempt to administer Gaza.”
MOVING FORWARD
Lapid’s proposal to hand over Gaza to Egypt for 15 years was creative and out-of-the-box, but it also demonstrates a complete ignorance of the realities of the Arab world. Egypt immediately rejected Lapid’s suggestion and said that Egypt will never take responsibility for Gaza BECAUSE GAZA BELONGS TO THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE (Trump needs to understand this as well). This might be hard for Israelis (and Trump) to grasp, but Gaza is part of Palestine and will be part of the State of Palestine that eventually will be recognized by the State of Israel.
October 7 should have been a wake-up call for Israelis that the occupation must end and that Israel cannot deny the right of the Palestinian people to a state of their own in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967. I understand that we are all still in a state of deep trauma. I understand that the majority of Israelis today reject the idea of a Palestinian state. But the reality of more than 7 million Israeli Jews and more than 7 million Palestinian Arabs living on the land between the River and the Sea is much stronger and compelling than the current mood of Israeli public opinion. Anyone is who is a genuine leader (unlike the so-called leaders that we now have) understands that leaders shape public opinion, they don’t run after it. Even leaders of the so-called left in Israel, like Yair Golan, are afraid to speak the words “two states” because he is afraid of public opinion, or because his so-called “strategic advisors” tell him not to speak about a Palestinian state. Yair Golan – that is a failure of your leadership and hints that perhaps you don’t have what it takes to actually be a leader.
We (Israelis and Palestinians) need new leaders. We need leaders who have the confidence to know that the conflict in this land which has witnessed the killing of each other for more than one hundred years must come to an end. We can no longer allow the extremists on both sides to determine our future. There are two people living on this land and neither will vacate the land for the other. Both peoples see this land as their rightful homeland and that will not change. There are no military or security solutions to this conflict. There are only political solutions which require leadership. There are security realities that must be dealt with. Both Israelis and Palestinians must live with security, freedom, and dignity. Both sides must respect the right of the other for self-determination and national expression on a designated territory. But peace will be built by cooperation, not by walls and fences that prevent people from interacting. Political separation – YES. Cross border cooperation – ABSOLUTELY!
This is a call for leadership. It is a call for leadership on both sides. It is a call for Israelis to understand that the fastest path to security is through recognizing the right of the Palestinian people to establish their state in Palestine. It is a call for Palestinians to end their foolish ant-normalization campaign in which they even boycott Israelis who are working against the occupation and support Palestinian freedom. It is a call for Palestinians to stop denying Israel’s right to exist just as Israelis must stop denying the existence of the Palestinian people. It is a call for both of our peoples to wake up from the trauma of the past 15 months and move us from trauma to facing reality head-on with the understanding that only looking back to the past will never allow us to move forward to a new future.
This is an invitation to all Israelis and all Palestinians to begin to build partnerships of understanding so that we can dispel the myth that while “we” want peace, the people on the other side do not. We will get there, even if it looks very bleak right now. We will get there because we have no other real choice. It is time to move from the concept of the war of no choice to the concept of the peace of no choice. (Gershon Baskin, February 26, 2025)
Gaza reconstruction needs political clarity, stability, UAE official says
Anwar Gargash, the diplomatic adviser to the UAE’s president, says a Gaza reconstruction plan cannot happen without a clear path to a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians.
Investment in the project would need political stability, he adds in remarks to the Investopia 2025 conference in Abu Dhabi.
“Gaza does need a reconstruction plan, a massive one, but that reconstruction plan cannot really take place without a clear path to a two-state solution. So, clearly here, you need political stability of a roadmap in order for these big investments to come to place,” Gargash says.
Arab states are weighing a post-war plan for Gaza to counter US President Donald Trump’s proposal to redevelop the strip under US control and displace Palestinians, a prospect that has angered regional leaders. The mainly Egyptian proposal may include up to $20 billion in funding over three years from the region, sources familiar with the discussions have said.
Northern Israel - Lebanon/Hizbollah/Syria
- Syria calls for Israel’s withdrawal from its lands, in closing statement of national dialogue summit
A temporary IDF post on the Syrian side of Mount Hermon, in a handout photo issued on January 28, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)
Syria condemns Israel’s incursion past its borders and calls for it to withdraw, according to the closing statement of a national dialogue summit organized by Syria’s new Islamist rulers to outline the country’s political roadmap.
Israel moved forces into the UN-monitored demilitarized zone within Syria after rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former Al Qaeda affiliate, toppled former president Bashar al-Assad in December.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel will not tolerate the presence of HTS in southern Syria, nor any other forces affiliated with the country’s new rulers, and demanded the territory be demilitarized.
- Witkoff says Lebanon, Syria could potentially join Abraham Accords: ‘So many profound changes happening’
Steve Witkoff, US President Donald Trump’s point person on the Middle East, voices optimism at efforts to bring Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords, a series of normalization agreements between Israel and Arab states that Trump brokered during his first term.
He also says he sees potential for normalization by Lebanon and Syria, after recent setbacks by forces in the two countries with ties to Iran’s clerical government.
“Lebanon, by the way, could actually mobilize and come into the Abraham Peace Accords, as could potentially Syria. So, so many profound changes are happening,” Witkoff tells an event in Washington for the American Jewish Committee. link I can only hope that our dysfunctional and failed government has an iota of ability to see the possibilities of a vision like this. Although I don't have any optimism for the actions of this government, I still have a little hope that maybe, just maybe someone in leadership can see beyond their own self interests and will look to further the future interests of peace in the region.
- IDF says strikes in southern Syria hit military targets, including weapon storage sites
The IDF confirms that it struck “military targets” in southern Syria, including weapon storage sites.
“The presence of military assets and forces in the southern part of Syria constitutes a threat to the citizens of the State of Israel,” the military says. “The IDF will continue to act to remove any threat to the citizens of the State of Israel.”
A temporary IDF post on the Syrian side of Mount Hermon, in a handout photo issued on January 28, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)
Syria condemns Israel’s incursion past its borders and calls for it to withdraw, according to the closing statement of a national dialogue summit organized by Syria’s new Islamist rulers to outline the country’s political roadmap.
Israel moved forces into the UN-monitored demilitarized zone within Syria after rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former Al Qaeda affiliate, toppled former president Bashar al-Assad in December.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel will not tolerate the presence of HTS in southern Syria, nor any other forces affiliated with the country’s new rulers, and demanded the territory be demilitarized.
Steve Witkoff, US President Donald Trump’s point person on the Middle East, voices optimism at efforts to bring Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords, a series of normalization agreements between Israel and Arab states that Trump brokered during his first term.
He also says he sees potential for normalization by Lebanon and Syria, after recent setbacks by forces in the two countries with ties to Iran’s clerical government.
“Lebanon, by the way, could actually mobilize and come into the Abraham Peace Accords, as could potentially Syria. So, so many profound changes are happening,” Witkoff tells an event in Washington for the American Jewish Committee. link I can only hope that our dysfunctional and failed government has an iota of ability to see the possibilities of a vision like this. Although I don't have any optimism for the actions of this government, I still have a little hope that maybe, just maybe someone in leadership can see beyond their own self interests and will look to further the future interests of peace in the region.
The IDF confirms that it struck “military targets” in southern Syria, including weapon storage sites.
“The presence of military assets and forces in the southern part of Syria constitutes a threat to the citizens of the State of Israel,” the military says. “The IDF will continue to act to remove any threat to the citizens of the State of Israel.”
West Bank and Jerusalem and Terror attacks within Israel
- IDF, Shin Bet say they thwarted plan to target troops in the West Bank with 100 kg bomb
Israeli security forces have foiled an attempt to target troops operating in the West Bank with 100 kg of explosives, the IDF and Shin Bet say in a joint statement.
It says that the plan was thwarted due to intelligence information received by the Shin Bet during an interrogation of two terror suspects.
The two suspects, both from Nablus, were arrested as part of a joint operation between the IDF, the Shin Bet, and the Border Police, which was aimed at apprehending terrorist cells in the Jenin area believed to be planning attacks against Israel.
The two men, members of a terror cell in Qabatiya, near Jenin, were apprehended with two M16 assault rifles in their possession while driving to what the IDF says was the location of a planned shooting attack in Huwara.
During the Shin Bet interrogation, they revealed that they had acquired, through operatives in the Jenin Battalion, a 100 kg bomb that they were planning to use against IDF troops operating in the area.
Using the information given to them by the suspects, the statement says that security forces carried out a raid in Qabatiya last night, in which they seized the 100 kg bomb, along with other weapons, and apprehended additional terror suspects.
Israeli security forces have foiled an attempt to target troops operating in the West Bank with 100 kg of explosives, the IDF and Shin Bet say in a joint statement.
It says that the plan was thwarted due to intelligence information received by the Shin Bet during an interrogation of two terror suspects.
The two suspects, both from Nablus, were arrested as part of a joint operation between the IDF, the Shin Bet, and the Border Police, which was aimed at apprehending terrorist cells in the Jenin area believed to be planning attacks against Israel.
The two men, members of a terror cell in Qabatiya, near Jenin, were apprehended with two M16 assault rifles in their possession while driving to what the IDF says was the location of a planned shooting attack in Huwara.
During the Shin Bet interrogation, they revealed that they had acquired, through operatives in the Jenin Battalion, a 100 kg bomb that they were planning to use against IDF troops operating in the area.
Using the information given to them by the suspects, the statement says that security forces carried out a raid in Qabatiya last night, in which they seized the 100 kg bomb, along with other weapons, and apprehended additional terror suspects.
Politics and the War (general news)
- Leaked IDF probe: Only one soldier was guarding Nahal Oz outpost on Oct. 7, Hamas had studied base layout for years
Memorial candles line the charred desks in the destroyed command center of Nahal Oz base, February 23, 2024. (Used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)A leaked IDF probe into the October 7, 2023, attack on the Nahal Oz military outpost reveals that there was only one soldier on guard duty that morning, and he was stationed at the entrance to the base, Channel 12 reports.
More than 50 soldiers were killed and 10 were taken hostage from the Nahal Oz outpost, situated less than one kilometer from the Gaza border.
On the morning of October 7, 162 soldiers were present in the outpost on the morning of October 7, of whom 81 were armed combat soldiers and another 9 were armed, but not trained for combat, Channel 12 reports, meaning that half of all soldiers on the base at the time of the attack were non-combatants.
Hamas had studied Nahal Oz from afar for years prior to launching the deadly assault and was intimately familiar with the layout of the base, including “where every room was,” the report says. It adds that the terror group knew that the base would be operating at a reduced capacity due to the Jewish holiday of Simhat Torah, which fell on a Saturday that year.
The IDF investigation found that Hamas began its final preparations for the attack on the evening of October 6, roughly 12 hours before the first air-raid sirens would blare in southern Israel, Channel 12 says. However, senior officers alerted to the unusual movement concluded that there was no need to send troops down to the border.
Had troops been instructed to take up their positions, “the battle picture would have looked different,” the report says.
The probe also addresses the impact that the incessant rocket fire had on the devastation inside the military outpost, as terrorists were able to easily kill large groups of soldiers who had gathered in bomb shelters.
The official findings of the probe are to be presented to relevant families on Thursday and then made available to the public.
- Yair Golan: Netanyahu solely to blame for Hamas’s ability to rebuild itself in Gaza
The Democrats chief Yair Golan accuses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of having “mismanaged” the war in Gaza, asserting that “it could have been won more effectively and much faster.”
Addressing a conference organized by the Institute for National Security Studies, Golan says that “the same government that failed on October 7 has also failed in its management of the war and continues to fail by not translating military achievements into a political resolution.”
“Wars are not won through military action alone, a war is a national effort that must be concluded with a political, diplomatic, and civil process that provides a solution. The fact that Hamas was able to rebuild itself in Gaza is solely Netanyahu’s fault. We did not invest a single moment of effort in preventing this, and as a result, we now find ourselves in this disgraceful situation,” he asserts.
- Defense committee chair Edelstein warns against firing Shin Bet chief, calls for state commission into Oct. 7
Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yuli Edelstein (Likud) comes out against the potential termination of Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet security agency.
Speaking at a conference organized by the Institute for National Security Studies, Edelstein says that the Shin Bet “as an organization does its job faithfully” and that he has not heard of any plans to fire Bar, who should “finish his term when he decides to end it.”
Last week, national broadcaster Kan reported that once the security agency completes its internal probes into the failures of October 7, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will demand Bar’s departure, either through his resignation or by a cabinet decision to remove him from office.
Edelstein also calls for a state commission of inquiry into October 7, stating that only such a probe would be given access to the minutes of his committee — and says that current efforts to advance the government’s judicial overhaul have come about “because there was no dialogue and no discourse regarding the changes that are truly necessary in the judicial system.”
“I talked about this years ago. Everyone needs to look at themselves in the mirror and ask how we got to this point,” he says.
As Edelstein speaks, protesters hold up a banner reading “Edelstein, don’t give a hand to an evasion law,” a reference to the ultra-Orthodox enlistment bill currently being debated in his committee.
A leaked IDF probe into the October 7, 2023, attack on the Nahal Oz military outpost reveals that there was only one soldier on guard duty that morning, and he was stationed at the entrance to the base, Channel 12 reports.
More than 50 soldiers were killed and 10 were taken hostage from the Nahal Oz outpost, situated less than one kilometer from the Gaza border.
On the morning of October 7, 162 soldiers were present in the outpost on the morning of October 7, of whom 81 were armed combat soldiers and another 9 were armed, but not trained for combat, Channel 12 reports, meaning that half of all soldiers on the base at the time of the attack were non-combatants.
Hamas had studied Nahal Oz from afar for years prior to launching the deadly assault and was intimately familiar with the layout of the base, including “where every room was,” the report says. It adds that the terror group knew that the base would be operating at a reduced capacity due to the Jewish holiday of Simhat Torah, which fell on a Saturday that year.
The IDF investigation found that Hamas began its final preparations for the attack on the evening of October 6, roughly 12 hours before the first air-raid sirens would blare in southern Israel, Channel 12 says. However, senior officers alerted to the unusual movement concluded that there was no need to send troops down to the border.
Had troops been instructed to take up their positions, “the battle picture would have looked different,” the report says.
The probe also addresses the impact that the incessant rocket fire had on the devastation inside the military outpost, as terrorists were able to easily kill large groups of soldiers who had gathered in bomb shelters.
The official findings of the probe are to be presented to relevant families on Thursday and then made available to the public.
The Democrats chief Yair Golan accuses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of having “mismanaged” the war in Gaza, asserting that “it could have been won more effectively and much faster.”
Addressing a conference organized by the Institute for National Security Studies, Golan says that “the same government that failed on October 7 has also failed in its management of the war and continues to fail by not translating military achievements into a political resolution.”
“Wars are not won through military action alone, a war is a national effort that must be concluded with a political, diplomatic, and civil process that provides a solution. The fact that Hamas was able to rebuild itself in Gaza is solely Netanyahu’s fault. We did not invest a single moment of effort in preventing this, and as a result, we now find ourselves in this disgraceful situation,” he asserts.
Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yuli Edelstein (Likud) comes out against the potential termination of Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet security agency.
Speaking at a conference organized by the Institute for National Security Studies, Edelstein says that the Shin Bet “as an organization does its job faithfully” and that he has not heard of any plans to fire Bar, who should “finish his term when he decides to end it.”
Last week, national broadcaster Kan reported that once the security agency completes its internal probes into the failures of October 7, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will demand Bar’s departure, either through his resignation or by a cabinet decision to remove him from office.
Edelstein also calls for a state commission of inquiry into October 7, stating that only such a probe would be given access to the minutes of his committee — and says that current efforts to advance the government’s judicial overhaul have come about “because there was no dialogue and no discourse regarding the changes that are truly necessary in the judicial system.”
“I talked about this years ago. Everyone needs to look at themselves in the mirror and ask how we got to this point,” he says.
As Edelstein speaks, protesters hold up a banner reading “Edelstein, don’t give a hand to an evasion law,” a reference to the ultra-Orthodox enlistment bill currently being debated in his committee.
The Region and the World
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Personal Stories
**Agam Berger Speaks in an Interview: "Liri Left and They Told Me She’d Return, Only After a Few Days I Realized She Was Back in Israel"**
Agam Berger, the observer who was released from Hamas captivity a month ago after 482 days in captivity, revealed the harsh reality she endured during her time in captivity in an interview with *Kan Bet*. Berger shared moments of uncertainty when they were moved from house to house, the "intrusiveness" of Hamas terrorists, and the faith that kept her going during the difficult times: "I believed I could protect myself, that I would return healthy and for the sake of my family."
**Information from the Outside World**
Berger spoke about items that reached them during captivity, offering a glimpse of what was happening outside the Gaza Strip. "Around January, they brought us various things the army had left behind. Sometimes maps from the army," she shared. "On one occasion, they brought two prayer books and a newspaper, I think it was *Maariv*."
The newspaper, she testified, was particularly significant for her. "That newspaper gave us answers to some questions because we had so many questions. We didn’t know if people were aware of what was happening, or if they knew but weren’t sure how to deal with it (the October 7 massacre)." She added: "We saw two newspapers; in one, there was an interview with Giora Eiland. It mentioned Idan Amedi, who was injured, and other things."
Agam shared that while in captivity, she and Liri Albag, who was with her, listened to the radio, which greatly strengthened them. Later, after Operation Arnon, which rescued Shlomi Ziv, Andrey Kozlov, Almog Meir Jan, and Noa Argamani, things changed. "That closed the radio option for us; they took it away," she testified.
**The Changing Attitude of the Terrorists**
Berger described how she and her fellow captives were abducted from different locations and moved between various places in the Gaza Strip. "We were in all kinds of places," she said. "Me, Liri, and Naama from the base, Romy from the party, and Emily from her home. We were abducted from several places and didn’t understand how it happened," she recalled.
Regarding the treatment they received from their captors, she said, "Everything depended on the period." She added, "Even if one day they treated us well, another day they would argue with us and look for things to criticize." At that point, Agam felt deep concern for the male captives: "We hoped they were fighting for them too, even though they were men, that it wasn’t less important to get them out just because they weren’t women. We assumed they were being abused, no matter their age. They consider every man a soldier."
**Hope for a Deal**
Berger described the pain felt by all the observers when they realized the controversy surrounding the release deal. "It was hard for us to hear that the price of the deal was too high," she shared. "We felt as though our lives weren’t important enough. It strengthened us to know that there were people saying the price could be paid."
63 Hostages Remain in Gaza - Their Stories (5 a day)
**David Cunio** **Age 34, Nir Oz** 
David, his wife Sharon, and their three-year-old twin daughters Emma and Yuli were all abducted from their home in Nir Oz on that fateful Saturday. Along with them, Sharon's sister, Danielle Aloni, and her six-year-old daughter Emilia were also taken from the safe room. From another house, David's brother, Ariel, and his partner Arbel Yehud were also abducted. David does not know that his twin brother, Eitan, is still alive.
"When he was in captivity, he couldn't look in the mirror," shared Sharon, who was held with him for most of her time in captivity. Danielle, Emilia, Sharon, Emma, and Yuli were released in the hostage deal in November. About their separation in Gaza, Sharon recounted: "He took me aside and begged, 'Don't give up on me.' The girls keep saying, 'Daddy is in Gaza with the bad people.' I don't have the emotional strength anymore."### **Ariel Cunio** **Age 27, Nir Oz** 
Ariel was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, where he grew up, along with his partner of the past five years, Arbel Yehud. They had recently returned from a joint trip to South America and had begun planning their wedding. Their dog, Maref, whom they had adopted just a week earlier, was shot and killed by Hamas terrorists. Ariel had completed his studies in computer science and worked as a software tester. His family and friends describe him as someone who loves being around people and pets, and who is a pasta enthusiast. His brother, David, was also abducted—along with David’s wife, Sharon, and their three-year-old twin daughters, Emma and Yuli. Sharon, Emma, and Yuli were released in the hostage deal in November.
### **Itzik Elgart** **Age 69, Nir Oz** 
Itzik was abducted from his home in Nir Oz. He was shot in the hand, and his brother Danny tried to guide him over the phone on how to apply a tourniquet. His brother recounted that Itzik tried to close the safe room door until he finally said, "Danny, this is the end." He was abducted along with his brother-in-law, Alex Danzig, who was murdered in captivity. Itzik is a father of two, lived in Denmark for many years, and returned to the kibbutz after his divorce. He is a devoted football fan and a loyal supporter of Maccabi Tel Aviv.
### **Matan Tzengauker** **Age 25, Nir Oz** 
Matan, originally from Ofakim, was abducted from his home in Nir Oz along with his girlfriend, Ilana Gritzewsky. He texted his family from the safe room, initially trying to reassure his mother, but later wrote, "They're here, they're in the house," and "I love you, don’t cry." His family shares that due to his parents' divorce, Matan was always mature, with a strong work ethic, contributing to the family’s income and helping his younger sisters. He is described as introverted, humble, and always putting others before himself. On December 7, 2023, Hamas released a proof-of-life video of Matan in which he says, among other things, "We are still alive, we want to return safely before we lose our minds. The isolation is killing us, and the darkness is terrifying. We die a thousand times every day." To his mother, Einav, one of the leaders of the protest at the Kirya in Tel Aviv, he said, "I hear a lot about you and the actions you’re taking. I hope to see you again and sit around the table with you when we meet."
---
### **Ohad Yahalomi** **Age 50, Nir Oz** 
Ohad was abducted while injured from his home in Nir Oz. His son, Eitan, was also abducted but separately. The terrorists managed to break through the doors of the safe room where the Yahalomi family was sheltering. They shot Ohad, and he remained in the house, with contact lost from that moment. The terrorists abducted his wife, Bat-Sheva, along with their two daughters on one motorcycle, and Eitan on another. In a split-second decision, Bat-Sheva managed to jump off the motorcycle while holding her young daughters and ran until she reached safety. Eitan was left alone. Ohad is an employee of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, an Ironman athlete, a sports enthusiast, a lover of hiking and nature, and a family man. Eitan was released on November 27, 2023.
Acronyms and Glossary
ICC - International Criminal Court in the Hague
IJC - International Court of Justice in the Hague
MDA - Magen David Adom - Israel Ambulance Corp
PA - Palestinian Authority - President Mahmud Abbas, aka Abu Mazen
PMO- Prime Minister's Office
UAV - Unmanned Aerial vehicle, Drone. Could be used for surveillance and reconnaissance, or be weaponized with missiles or contain explosives for 'suicide' explosion mission
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