A vote against the hostage deal is akin to a vote to “kill my brother,” Yotam Cohen, brother of hostage IDF soldier Nimrod Cohen, said in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday.
The comment was directed at former national security minister MK Itamar Ben-Gvir, who voted against the deal. Ben-Gvir attempted to respond to Cohen, and a vocal argument erupted.
Ben-Gvir later said in response to a different family member of a hostage, “How much blood will the deal cost us?” This led to another uproar in the committee. Ben-Gvir exited soon after.
Bringing home the hostages
The committee took a break, during which National Unity chairman MK Benny Gantz requested to speak “with the cameras off.”
“The war will take a long time,” he said. “Everyone here has the same goal: to bring the hostages home… But the only way to do it is if we do it together,” Gantz said. He called on everyone “not to change their opinions” but to work together and not attack each other.
Two hostage family members answered, “But what are you doing about it?” One of them, Yehuda Cohen, father of Nimrod Cohen, criticized Gantz for remaining in government even when the prime minister “thwarted a hostage deal.” Gantz pushed back, saying that he had set “six conditions to remain in government” and had left the government when they were not met.
In a press conference later on Monday, Ben-Gvir said Hamas was “blossoming” in Gaza and that the hostage deal signaled a return to “old conceptions.” He addressed the exchange in the committee, saying to critics from the hostage families, “I understand you; I love you too; I was moved to tears to see” the hostages come home.
“But alongside that, I want to be here for those who cannot speak and perhaps do not know they need to speak, for the sake of those who could be murdered, for the sake of those who might, heaven forbid, become victims of this reckless deal, for the sake of those whose lives will be ruined because of the deal.”