When will Netanyahu heed the cries of the hostages?

In late October 2023, I was sitting shiva at the home of Maurice Shnaider, whose sister and brother-in-law were murdered on October 7^th, when he said something I would come to hear from many relatives of Israeli hostages.

“We have the rest of our lives to fight Hamas,” Shnaider told me quietly, fighting back tears. “The hostages have no time.”

Shnaider’s sister, Margit Silberman, was the mother of Shiri Bibas, a 32-year-old who was kidnapped with her 9-month-old son Kfir and 4-year-old son Ariel, and taken to Gaza. Shiri’s husband, Yarden, tried to fight off the terrorists who invaded their home, and was separated from his wife and children. He would never see them again.

I first met Shnaider in September of 2023, when I brought my daughter to Hebrew school and was introduced to Maurice, her Hebrew teacher. We connected instantly, as we had just moved from southern Israel to upstate New York, and he too was Israeli, with family in southern Israel.

Ever since the early days of this war, hostage families have been urging the Israeli government to prioritize the release of their loved ones over fighting Hamas. They knew then what Israeli military officials would confirm months later: defeating Hamas would take years. They understood that the price of securing their release would be high. Yet they believed the Israeli government, which had ignored so many warnings should pay that price – not the innocent hostages. After all, what enabled Hamas’s massacre was not only the military’s failure to protect Israel’s borders on October 7, 2023. Since 2018, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had overseen millions of dollars in payments from Qatar to Hamas, despite warnings from Israeli security officials.

Maurice and his family would only learn the fate of Shiri and her sons in February 2025, when Hamas released their remains in a ceasefire-hostage deal that Netanyahu finally agreed to under pressure from the Trump Administration. Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas were murdered by their captors in Gaza shortly after Maurice uttered his tragically prophetic words.

The twisted ceremony Hamas held in Gaza on the day of their release was both a reminder of the government’s refusal to heed the warnings of hostage families, and a symbol of the war’s failure to defeat Hamas. It was also a flashback to October 7^th, as masked, heavily armed men paraded the coffins of the Bibas children before cheering crowds in Gaza.

After burying his wife and children in February, newly released hostage Yarden Bibas wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, imploring him to end the war in Gaza in exchange for the release of the remaining hostages. Shiri, Kfir and Ariel, wrote Yarden, their bereaved husband and father, “could and should have been saved.”

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Yarden Bibas was not alone in his plea. One of the fiercest Israeli critics of the war in Gaza is Einav Zangauker, the mother of a hostage, who was once a loyal Netanyahu supporter. Dozens of released hostages have also urged an end to the war, which they say endangers the living hostages. Much of Israel agrees with them.

Polls consistently show that the vast majority of Israelis want their government to end the war in exchange for the hostages. This is also, reportedly, what the Trump Administration wants. While Netanyahu insists that only military pressure will lead to their release, the war has led to the deaths of more than three dozen hostages, including three who have died since Netanyahu backed out of the ceasefire deal in March.

Early this month, Netanyahu confirmed the accusations of his critics, proclaiming that “victory” over Hamas was more important than returning the hostages. Days later, the Israeli government announced the escalation of the war in Gaza with the goal of “total victory.” Over a year has passed since Netanyahu vowed that victory was merely “a step away.”

“Even the chief of the army said this is going to risk the lives of the hostages,” said Yael Alexander, the mother of American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander, referring to the escalation of the war in Gaza. Speaking to me three days before the U.S. secured Hamas’s release of her son, she told me, “I want to see the Israeli government saying that their main priority is the hostages.”

Instead, Israel’s government is waging a war with no end – and no clear goals – against the wishes of its own citizens, including hostages and their families, for whom they claim to be fighting for.

When the first phase of the last ceasefire deal ended in March, Hamas was prepared to enter phase 2, which would have seen them release the remaining hostages in exchange for an end to the war. Rather than proceeding to phase 2, Netanyahu insisted on extending phase 1, involving a temporary halt to the fighting and the release of a small number of hostages. Hamas refused, arguing that they had already agreed to a ceasefire deal that would end the war in exchange for the remaining hostages. A majority of Israelis agreed with Hamas, preferring that Israel proceed with phase 2. Nevertheless, Netanyahu resumed the war, under the pretense that Hamas had rejected his ceasefire offer, when in fact he had reneged on the deal that both Israel and Hamas had agreed to.

While Netanyahu has failed to detail what he means by “total victory,” and has repeatedly rejected military officials’ requests for a day-after plan for Gaza, one of his far-right ministers did that for him last week. “We are finally going to conquer the Gaza Strip” and will not withdraw “even in exchange for hostages,” announced Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. “Gaza will be totally destroyed,” he added the following day.

This week, Israel targeted a hospital in Gaza with the goal of killing Hamas leader Mohammad Sinwar, the brother of Yahya Sinwar, who was killed in October 2024. If Mohammad Sinwar was indeed assassinated, he too will be replaced by another Hamas member, as has been the case for every Hamas leader Israel has assassinated over the past two decades.

What the Israeli government fails to understand is what the hostage families have known since October 2023. Israel will be fighting Hamas for years. The hostages have no time.

 The same leaders whose failures enabled the greatest catastrophe in Israeli history are still, unfathomably, dictating Israel’s fate. Ever since October 7, 2023, polls have repeatedly shown that the overwhelming majority of Israelis believe Netanyahu should resign and take responsibility for the failures that led to Israel’s deadliest day. Instead, Netanyahu is waging a forever war in order to remain in power. That war has not only claimed thousands of innocent lives in Gaza, but has left Israelis feeling no safer than they did before.

“This is the place where as a Jew, you should feel safe. We can’t feel safe anymore,” said Yael Alexander. “Real victory is bringing the hostages home.”