Freed hostages, relatives slam Netanyahu in heated meeting: leaked audio

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced harsh criticism from freed hostages and relatives of those still being held captive by Hamas during a war cabinet meeting, according to leaked audio of the heated event.

Recordings from Tuesday’s meeting revealed that the freed hostages had felt abandoned by their government during their weeks of captivity in Gaza, with several people shouting “shame” at Netanyahu while one woman accused Israel of conducting airstrikes near the place she and others were being held.

“The feeling we had there was that no one was doing anything for us,” the former hostage, who was not identified, told Netanyahu in audio acquired by the Israeli outlet ynet.

“The fact is that I was in a hiding place that was shelled, and we had to be smuggled out and we were wounded,” she added. “That’s besides the helicopter that shot at us on the way to Gaza.”

The woman went on to blast Israel’s intelligence network, alleging that the government had “no information” at all about the hostages’ location given that their holding place was shelled during the IDF’s bombardments in northern Gaza.

The former hostage, whose husband remains in captivity, also accused Netanyahu and the government of abandoning the male captives in Gaza, saying they are suffering just as much as the women, the bulk of whom have been freed.

The woman added that before they were separated, her husband would “beat himself every day,” causing him to bleed because the conditions in Gaza were “too much for him.”

She and the other families ultimately accused Netanyahu of putting politics over the well-being of the estimated 137 people being held in Gaza after a cease-fire agreement between the Jewish State and Hamas broke down last week.

“You put politics above the return of the kidnapped,” the woman told the prime minister, alleging that winning the war is more important for him than the freedom of his people.

“And you want to topple the Hamas government, to show that you have bigger balls? There is no life here that is more important than others,” she added.

Other former hostages echoed the hardships they experienced under Hamas and the fear of the ongoing airstrikes in Gaza, which have destroyed and damaged about 60% of the Palestinian enclave’s buildings and infrastructure.

“We were in tunnels, terrified that it would not be Hamas, but Israel, that would kill us, and then they would say Hamas killed you,” one Kibbutz Nir Oz resident who was freed told the war cabinet.

The former hostages and relatives of those still in captivity all added that time was running out for the hostages stuck in Gaza as the war threatens to consume the entire territory.

Following the jeers from the group, Netanyahu tried to assure them that his government was doing everything in its power to locate and free the hostages in Gaza, but claimed that force was the only way to do so.

“Until we initiated the ground invasion, there was nothing. Nothing, nada, zero,” Netanyahu said of the negotiations.

The prime minister reiterated that it was Hamas who broke the temporary cease-fire when they allegedly refused to free the remaining female captives, as per the agreement that was helped brokered by the US and Qatar.

The civilians who attended the meeting told ynet that they were displeased with the meeting, saying that their concerns were not heard and that “Netanyahu’s reply was curt, and he seemed detached from the conversation.”