Lire cet entretien en français / Read this interview in French
Following the war cabinet’s decision to take control of Gaza, families of hostages called for a general strike to shut down the Israeli economy. The strike took place on Sunday 24th of August as well as the following Tuesday. The families, joined by massive crowds of Israelis, called for an end to the war and the return of all the hostages at once. They expressed grave concern that the occupation of Gaza will obstruct the possibility to reach a deal.
On August 30th, 2025, Lishai Miran Lavie, the wife of hostage Omri Miran, spoke at an assembly at Shaar HaNegev intersection : “Twelve days have passed since Hamas conveyed its positive response to Israel – and in Israel ? Silence. A country that in 12 days overwhelmed Iran but finds no time to return an answer to Hamas. If this looks like obstruction, if it sounds like obstruction – then it is probably a deliberate obstruction by the Israeli government. Therefore, we must increase the pressure and reach the only person in whose hands the fate of the hostages and soldiers lies – the Prime Minister. Omri, my love, hold on. You will hear the word Aba again. You will receive a hug that will heal everything.”
Dani Elgarat is a distinguished former police officer and now a high school teacher of Islamic and MiddleEastern history in Rishon LeZion. He is also one of the leaders of the protests in Israel and of the call for a general strike. He recently joined the “Demokratim” party led by Yair Golan. His brother, Itzik Elgart, was kidnapped from his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz, tortured and brutally murdered whilst in Hamas captivity.
Interview with Dani Elgarat
Shelly Alfred – What led you to publicly call for a general strike?
Dani Elgarat - Jerusalem decided that it wanted to eliminate Hamas even at the cost of eliminating the hostages. For two years, Netanyahu said in every speech, “We will free all our captives.” In the end, he reached a point where he had no choice but to kill them. This shocked us.
SA – When you say “Jerusalem,” you mean the government?
DE – I’m talking about one person. It doesn’t matter what others think, they always fall in line with his position. The responsibility lies only with him.
SA – On August 24, 2025, Netanyahu's response to the strike, was that “Those who are calling today for an end to the war without defeating Hamas are hardening Hamas' position and delaying the release of the hostages.” Isn’t Netanyahu saying that the mass demonstrations are serving Hamas and if only you would sit by quietly, maybe we would have already reached a deal?
DE – Netanyahu is the one creating the false narrative that the protests are serving Hamas. He is the one tellingHamas : “Look, there are protests. They are serving you. Be tougher.” Returned hostages have repeatedly said that one of the main things that kept them alive was that they saw we were fighting for them.
SA – Netanyahu says he brought back 205 hostages.
DE – I wouldn’t brag about returning dead bodies. That’s not bringing them back. My brother did not return from captivity. He died there. We know that at least a third of the hostages that “came back” are dead. There are still dozens of hostages who are not alive in Gaza. There are only approximately 20 living hostages.
SA – What do you think about a comprehensive deal, bringing all the hostages in one go?
DE – We have always demanded a comprehensive deal. Netanyahu, on the other hand, insisted all along that the deal be carried out in stages. He was playing for time. Now that Hamas wants a deal in stages, Netanyahu suddenly wants a comprehensive deal. He is, however, setting conditions that Hamas will never agree to. We are the victims of these manipulations.
SA – Why is Netanyahu afraid of a comprehensive deal?
DE – It involves ending the war. If the war stops, the government will fall. He’ll have no more protection. He’ll need to appear in court four times a week. He will have to undergo investigations regarding the Qatar connection to his office, and of course, a state commission of inquiry will have to be established regarding the October 7th events, which is something the government has been able to prevent until now. He has a lot to lose on a personal level.
About a year ago, after the murder of the six hostages, half a million Israelis took to the streets. His office then was so terrified by the numbers of protestors that they leaked a classified document [1] to the German newspaper Bild, in order to manipulate public opinion against the deal. They leaked it to a foreign newspaper because theIsraeli military censor refused to allow this publication in the Israeli press.
SA – You spoke of a major failure in not being able to mobilize the masses to save your brother, Itzik. How do you feel today about the Israeli public?
DE – In terms of the outcome, I am disappointed, but I can understand it. Since October 7th, the entire population of Israel has been traumatized. Some people knew how to turn the trauma into protest, and others did not know how to deal with it. This isn’t a simple event like a rise in gas prices for instance. People feel that they are part of the event itself. In any poll, 80% of the population in Israel wants to end the war and bring back the hostages, but not all 80% are able to take to the streets. In addition, young people are in the reserves and have to worry about their very survival. That is one of the prime minister’s goals, to keep us stressed out so that we don’t have the luxury of going out to protest.
SA – You recently discovered that Itzik died from torture.
DE – Yes. At first, we received information from a fellow hostage who was with Itzik in the tunnel that he had suffered a heart attack during interrogation. Recently, the body arrived and was examined at the pathology institute. It turned out that Itzik had been tortured and murdered. Some of his toes were broken. Many of his ribs were also broken causing his lungs to collapse. The cause of his death was Hamas, but the reason for his death was negligence. Unfortunately, it was the prime minister who neglected him.
SA – I have often watched videos of you confronting Knesset members or ministers in the Knesset committees, where new laws are being discussed before being legislated. Your presence in this place is reminiscent of a biblical prophet rebuking his people for their moral decline. In one of these confrontations, you spoke with a Member of the Knesset, asking him to name five hostages. He refused. You have accused members of the coalition of objectifying the hostages.
DE – The first to objectify the hostages was, of course, Hamas, which does not see them as human beings and treats them as less than animals. It sees them as bargaining chips, a tool to achieve other things. But the one who objectified them even further is our prime minister. He sees them as Hamas sees them : hostages to maintain his power. When he witnesses our people looking as Muselman from the camps, or the morbid videos of Evyatar and Rom [2], and it doesn’t make him stop everything and bring them home, then he doesn’t treat them as human beings. We know when Jews stopped having names and became numbers.
Turning them into martyrs also objectify them. The Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel sent me a letter of condolence in which he wrote : “You can take comfort in the fact that your brother died for the sanctification of God's name." Instead of my brother living for the name of God, he had to die for it. In Judaism, those who die for martyrdom are people who were asked to change their religion and refused. I am sure that my brother was not given any such option, to convert to Christianity or Islam. It was not death for Kiddush Hashem. This is a dangerous messianic perception. This radical Islam’s perception, which sends people to become martyrs. My brother did not want to be a Shahid. My brother wanted to come home.
SA – During the war, there were some successes in Lebanon and Iran. Are we in a better situation today?
DE – The situation today is much worse than it was on October 7th. Since then, an entire division, approximately 20,000 soldiers and more, has been rendered unfit for service. Soldiers either died or got injured. It’s madness. Hamas still controls Gaza. The hostages have not yet returned. Hezbollah is inLebanon ; we have reached an agreement with them. In Israel, there are still tens of thousands of refugees within the country who didn’t return to their homes yet. To this day, Tel Aviv residents go into shelters every time a rocket is fired from Yemen. The residents of Sderot are now better protected than the residents of TelAviv.
In the war against Iran, we achieved 12 days of success, but in the end, we scored an own goal. Supposedly,there is no nuclear program now, but that is not the case. In fact, Iran has all the capabilities to continue developing nuclear weapons. On the other hand, there is no longer IAEA supervision. Instead of taking advantage of all these tactical victories in order to reach a political solution, we hear the prime minister say that a political solution is a defeat. A prime minister is elected to find political solutions. The army finds military solutions. Politicians must know how to translate military solutions into political solutions. A prime minister who thinks that a political solution is a defeat is a loser.
After the great military success in Iran, which was achieved thanks to the army, the public discourse suddenly shifted to calling for the Netanyahu trial to be canceled. In other words, the interests behind these actions are not truly for the sake of the country’s security, but for the sake of remaining in power.
SA – Haim Peri Z’L, whilst in captivity, told his fellow hostages that because they were leftists and Bibi was prime minister, it would take at least two years to get them released. Was he right?
DE – Haim Peri was referring to the small group of kibbutz members with whom he was held captive, but the hostages are from all over Israel. They are of all opinions and backgrounds ; Jews, Arabs, and Thai foreign workers. It doesn’t matter whether the hostages are leftists or not. What bothers Netanyahu is that the same people who demonstrated against the anti‐democratic upheaval before October 7th are now the ones who want Israel to maintain its values and bring back the hostages. That is why he has framed the entire struggle for the hostages as a political issue.
SA – It seems that the demonstrations abroad in support of the hostages have become a kind of support for the Israeli government. Jewish communities outside of Israel are afraid to express criticism of theIsraeli government. Any criticism of Israel is met with anger within the communities and creates division.
DE – I was on a delegation to Bern, Switzerland, I witnessed the mood there and didn’t like it. The community there still perceives Israel as it was before October 7th, perhaps they view Israel as it was after the Six‐Day War. Israel the heroine, who will always stand by our side. They don’t understand that what happened here on October 7th and in recent years is not the Israel they know. This is an Israel that is willing to sacrifice people for political survival. This is an Israel whose prime minister is now on trial for public corruption of the highest level, and whose closest associates received regular salaries from Qatar, even during the war. This is a country whose parliament is filled with Kahanists, racists, and people who were once outlawed as a terrorist organization. I want to ask the Jews in the diaspora : if tomorrow they face a serious anti‐Semitic incident in their country, will Israel be your refuge ? I’m not sure that’s how they feel about Israel today. The State of Israel was established as a refuge for Jews, but today, if you have a foreign passport, you are much safer. A mother who enlists a soldier today, in addition to giving him undershirts and socks, must also equip him with a foreign passport, because then he is safer than a soldier who enlisted “only » as an Israeli. Idan Alexander was released due to his American passport, whilst Matan Angerst is still there.
SA – Generally, Jewish communities still seem to be very connected to the traditional Zionist organizations such as Keren Hayesod, KKL, and the Jewish Agency. In many ways, supporting Israel means supporting these organizations. Many are not very familiar with the more recently established organizations such as “Brothers in Arms”.
DE – Those who woke up on October 7th and literally saved the country were all the civilian volunteer organizations such as “Brothers in Arms”. Without them, the country would not have survived. There was complete chaos. The shock and loss were so great that none of the government ministries and none of the large organizations such as the Agency, were functioning. The only ones functioning were those civil organizations that had previously got organized in the protest against the wave of anti‐democratic laws before the war. They immediately set up command centers and huge warehouses and began meeting with people and bringing equipment to the army.
SA – A soldier's sister asked me to help her brother's battalion raise money in order to buy drones that would help them be better protected. Why doesn't the IDF provide them with the necessary equipment? Does it not have the money?
DE – The IDF has sufficient funds, and the state has sufficient funds. The question is where to allocate it. Now, for example, instead of ending the war, Israel is prepared to occupy Gaza and finance it, including providing health services, sewage and everything else needed to maintain a civilian population under control.
SA – They are talking about estimated costs of ten billion shekels a year to occupy Gaza.
DE – Right, and then they will come to Jewish communities in the Diaspora and ask for support. Today, the money goes to the settlements, to the occupied territories and to all kinds of unnecessary government ministries that never existed before, such as the “Ministry of Jerusalem and Israel Tradition,” the “Ministry of Heritage,” the “Ministry of Settlement and National Missions,” and the “Ministry of Religious Services.”
SA – What do you say about the pictures of hungry children in Gaza?
DE – If Hamas wanted to take care of the hungry children, it would have done so long ago, stopped the war, and said that it is more important to save the children than to get a few more prisoners out of jail. Hamas is directly responsible for everything that happens in Gaza. Hamas takes the seeming starvation in Gaza and uses it as a tool to get the world to back it up, and unfortunately, it succeeds. On October 7th,Israel was the most embraced country in the world. Today, two years later, we are the most isolated country in the world. This was one of Hamas” goals. On October 7, Hamas knew that it would not destroy the State ofIsrael militarily. Hamas can only destroy the State of Israel by turning the whole world against us and causing a rift within the people and within the country. The prime minister is doing everything he can to help Hamas achieve its goals, whether consciously or not.
The bottom line is that Gaza is Hamas” responsibility and under Hamas” control. Humanitarian aid is coming in and always has come in. We have seen what Hamas has done with humanitarian aid. It has taken it and used it first for its own needs and then sold it at exorbitant prices to the population. I oppose placing all responsibility for the humanitarian issue on Israel.
SA – Should the Jewish communities “excomuniate” Netanyahu from our midst?
DE – What Jewish communities abroad should do is raise their voices and say : “Enough is enough. We are not with you. We will not contribute”. Why are liberal Jews you silent ? Why are you letting the State of Israel let the Haredim dictate what Judaism is ? Why don’t strong liberal Jewish communities demand that the State of Israel recognize them ? It’s not true that if you don’t live in Israel, you have no right to speak up.
[1] In September 2024, a close associate of Netanyahu, Eli Feldstein, who was also suspected of having received money from Qatar, leaked to the German magazine Bild a highly confidential document from the Directorate of Military Intelligence with the aim of “distorting the debate on the hostages” in favor of the Prime Minister. According to The Times of Israel, the Rishon LeZion court later determined “that the leak of the document was liable to gravely undermine Israel’s security, while the IDF concluded that the leak harmed the purpose of the war, namely the release of the hostages, as well as military operations and the Shin Bet’s internal security agency in Gaza.”
[2] In early August 2025, Hamas released videos of hostages Evyatar David (24) and Rom Braslavsky (21), both held captive since October 7, 2023. The two men appeared emaciated and, in a sordid staging, Evyatar was forced to dig his own grave in a narrow tunnel.
