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Rabat – The families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza have voiced sharp criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s approach to ongoing truce negotiations.
In a strongly worded statement, the families accused Netanyahu of deflecting responsibility and failing to take decisive action to secure the release of their loved ones.
“The full and direct responsibility for the fate of the negotiations is on the prime minister. His incessant attempts to blame the negotiation teams, the mediators, the press, the hostages’ families, and even the hostages themselves – these all throw sand in the eyes of the public and the entire world,” the families said.
They called on Netanyahu to take responsibility, urging him to personally intervene and secure the return of the hostages, whom they say have been “abandoned on his watch” for the past ten months.
This criticism comes amid heightened tensions following the retrieval of the bodies of six hostages, including Abraham Munder, whose funeral was held in Kibbutz Nir Oz, southern Israel, on August 21. The bodies were recovered from Gaza by Israeli forces.
This severe criticism of Netanyahu’s dismissive approach to the ongoing truce negotiations comes after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken concluded his ninth visit to the Middle East since the outbreak of the war on Gaza.
Having repeatedly failed to achieve a significant breakthrough in ceasefire negotiations, Blinken’s latest diplomatic efforts in Egypt and Qatar did once again not yield any major advancement towards halting the violence on Gaza.
Blinken emphasized the urgent need for a ceasefire and a hostage agreement, stating: “Our message is simple. It’s clear and it’s urgent. We need to get a ceasefire and hostage agreement over the finish line, and we need to do it now. Time is of the essence.”
According to Blinken, Israel has accepted a US-brokered “bridging proposal” designed to close the gaps between Israel and Hamas. However, the Palestinian group rejected the deal, arguing that it diverged from a previous proposal supported by US President Joe Biden in May and endorsed by the UN Security Council.
Hamas has condemned the latest proposal as a reversal of previous agreements, which called for a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and accused the US of yielding to Israeli demands.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu has insisted on maintaining a military presence in Gaza.
