Security Cabinet ‘of death’: Hostage mother decries decision to expand IDF ops. to Gaza City

“If you occupy parts of the Gaza Strip and hostages are murdered, we will pursue you. Your hands will be stained with the blood of the hostages!”

Hostage mother and a leader of Israel’s protest movement for the release of hostages, Einav Zangauker, said that Israel’s Security Cabinet is “a cabinet of death” at the latest demonstration at Begin Gate in Tel Aviv on Saturday.

“This is the 673rd day that 49 male hostages and one female hostage are still being held in the hell of Gaza. Last Thursday, the cabinet sealed the fate of the hostages – the living will be murdered, and the dead will disappear forever.”

This comes over a day after the security cabinet approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans for an IDF takeover of Gaza City.

“This move has no public support! Most people want to end the war and bring everyone home. The only thing Netanyahu needs to do is put forward a comprehensive agreement to end the war, one that is real and feasible,” Zangauker added. “But Netanyahu has already decided to kill them and condemn us to an eternal war.”

“The State of Israel is not its government,” she added, and called on the public to shut down the country and the economy.

“I will finish with a direct address to the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu: If you occupy parts of the Gaza Strip and hostages are murdered, we will pursue you. In the public squares, in the election campaigns, at every time and place. We will remind the people of Israel, day and night, that you could have secured a hostage deal and chose to have them killed. Your hands will be stained with the blood of the hostages!”

Also at the protest, Yotam Cohen, brother to hostage Nimrod Cohen, addressed US Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff.

‘Save Israel from the cabinet of death and the death-eaters who run it’

“Israel was founded as a safe haven for the Jewish people, not so that the Israeli government would order the killing of Israelis kidnapped from their homes,” Cohen said. “All of Israel and the entire Jewish people stand behind you in the effort to end this war. Put forward a concrete proposal to end the war and secure the return of all the hostages – this week, before the military operation begins.”

Thousands were also seen rallying for a hostage deal at Hostages Square on Saturday night, Army Radio reported.

Witkoff is set to meet with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman al-Thani on Saturday to discuss a proposed agreement to end the war that includes the release of the 50 remaining hostages, Axios reported earlier.

“I call from here to the people of Israel – for the sake of our heroic soldiers, for the sake of the hostages who are enduring a Holocaust and barely surviving – come out of your homes to stop the country!” he continued. “Let’s take back the State of Israel, let’s save it from the cabinet of death and the death-eaters who run it.”

At the cabinet meeting, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir disputed any deal that would result in a temporary occupation of the Gaza Strip.

During a break in the meeting, National Missions Minister (RZP) Orit Strock reportedly yelled at hostage coordinator Gal Hirsch, who told senior IDF officials that he had requested that the goal to free the hostages appear in the IDF’s mission, according to N12.

“What the hell, that’s not the mission – the mission is to eliminate Hamas,” she reportedly told him.

Strock said that the effort to return the captives is why soldiers are killed. Hirsch responded, according to the report, “Our soldiers fight to save civilians and return hostages. It’s always been that way. I did it myself. That’s how we are.”