Statements made by far-right lawmaker Itamar Ben Gvir regarding Palestinian inmates while serving as national security minister prompted Hamas to deteriorate the living conditions of the hostages held in Gaza, according to remarks attributed to a recently freed captive.
A former hostage, whose identity remains undisclosed, provided this testimony in an interview aired by Channel 13 news on Monday night. This individual was among six captives released on Saturday.
When Ben Gvir assumed his role as national security minister two years ago, he was vocal in his opposition to what he described as excessive privileges for incarcerated security prisoners. He pushed for the prohibition of fresh pita bread in prison and sought to limit the duration of inmates’ showers. Following the October 7, 2023, attacks, he enacted additional restrictions, including overcrowding measures and the removal of beds from prison cells. These actions have led to legal challenges from civil rights organizations, which have appealed to the High Court of Justice.
Last month, Ben Gvir and members of his ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit party resigned from the government in opposition to a deal that secured the release of hostages in exchange for a ceasefire. He has stated that his party is willing to rejoin the coalition if military operations in Gaza resume.
Reacting to the Channel 13 report, Ben Gvir took to X, writing: “Channel 13 decided this evening to grant legitimacy to the horrors that Hamas committed against the hostages, with a report claiming that because of a change in prisoner conditions that I led, Hamas abused our hostages.
“It seems they forgot that the terrorists killed, raped and massacred Jews long before the [prison] reform. They don’t need any excuse to do that besides the fact that we exist,” Ben Gvir wrote.
He went on to say: “The essence of the conception is that if we just tolerate, bend over before the terrorists and lower our heads, they’ll do us the courtesy of stopping to kill Jews.” The term “the conception” refers to the flawed assumptions about Hamas’s motives that facilitated the October 7, 2023 massacre.
The Channel 13 segment also included testimony from Eliya Cohen, one of the six captives who were freed on Saturday along with Tal Shoham, Avera Mengistu, Omer Shem Tov, Omer Wenkert, and Hisham al-Sayed.
Cohen recounted that after Israeli forces conducted an operation rescuing four hostages—Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv—Hamas intensified its mistreatment of the remaining captives.
He detailed how, in an effort to prevent further rescue attempts, their captors began shackling the hostages together.
Additionally, Cohen noted that on Tuesday, he was forcibly separated from fellow hostage Alon Ohel, who remains in captivity.
On Monday, the families of the six recently freed hostages held a press conference to shed light on the harsh conditions their loved ones endured. The former captives described being restrained, deprived of food, and denied essential medical attention.
{Matzav.com Israel}