This weekend Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized the families of hostages during a press conference, telling the desperate victims that their protests were “useless and contributing to the demands of Hamas”.
“I understand that it is impossible to control one’s emotions” in this situation but it also “doesn’t help” and only “hardens Hamas’ demands and delays the results that we all want,” said the prime minister.
In response, members of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum blasted the prime minister for his comments.
“We expect the prime minister to remember that he is an elected official whose job it is to correct the errors [of October 7], not scold those whose family members were kidnapped,” the forum said.
“The families are meeting with world leaders, led efforts for the transfer of medicine to the hostages, brought the president of the International Criminal Court to Israel and mobilized the media and the world’s most powerful influencers in support of Israel and the hostages,” it added.
On October 7, Hamas took 240 hostages. During a temporary ceasefire in November, the Palestinian movement released 105 hostages from Gaza.
Netanyahu has said that he and his government are working to eliminate Hamas, and that the war between Israel and Hamas will not end until the mission is complete. In response to requests for investigations into the October 7 attack, Netanyahu has said that “investigations should be opened after the end of the war, not during its peak”.
On Friday, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) made a provisional ruling that ordered Tel Aviv to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza. More than 26,000 Palestinians—mostly women and children—have been killed since the start of the war and over 64,000 have been injured, according to Palestinian health authorities. Hamas has killed around 1,200 people in Israel.
Israel's offensive has also left 85% of Gaza’s population internally displaced amid shortages of food, clean water and medicine, and more than 60% of the homes there have been destroyed, according to a report from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
In response to the court’s provisional ruling, Netanyahu said the court “has not made a decision to stop the war and has not forced us to end it”.
Earlier this week an audio tape of Netanyahu lambasting Qatar—which has been a key player in helping to arrange hostage releases—was leaked. Families of those held hostage by Hamas have denied leaking the audio.