Father of Israeli captive says Netanyahu 'committing war crimes'

The father of an Israeli captive held in Gaza said on Monday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is "committing war crimes", as he expressed his support for the international arrest warrant issued against the Israeli leader.
Yehuda Cohen, the father of 19-year-old soldier Nimrod Cohen, criticised Netanyahu for prolonging the war on Gaza for his own "private interests" during a discussion with families of captives in the Knesset on Monday, sparking anger amongst members of parliament.
Cohen said the prime minister was "not only committing war crimes against the residents of Gaza, but also against IDF soldiers".
MK Eliyahu Revivo, a member of Netanyahu's Likud party, shot back at the father, saying: "If you continue your blatant words, you will put your son in the Hamas dungeons for many more years."
Cohen expressed support for international law, and said he supported the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Netanyahu because "the Israeli government, the coalition, has betrayed the state".
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He also condemned the far-right government for having a preference for a "murderous ideology", where it believes the building of illegal settlements and the death of soldiers is more valuable than saving lives.
"Your party is only concerned with death. Just because Orit Strook decides to sacrifice her sons does not mean that I should sacrifice my son, or that every other family in the country should sacrifice its son because of an ideological idea that is against international law.
"That is called fascism," Cohen said. A far-right politician, Strook is Israel's settlements minister.
Anti-government protests
The families of Israeli captives held in Gaza have long accused Netanyahu of failing to bring their relatives home alive amid growing calls for a general strike to force a deal with Hamas.
Large demonstrations, led by the friends and families of captives against the government and Netanyahu's handling of the war in Gaza have consistently taken places across Israel since the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023.
Though the Hostages Families Forum has largely tried to stay apolitical, many of the families are now aligning themselves with anti-government protesters who were mobilising weekly before the Hamas-led attack.
Yotam Cohen, the brother of Nimrod, previously told Middle East Eye that the prime minister "wants to paint us as political, that the hostages’ families are attracted to the left.
“He is drawing this equation that says it’s either protecting Israel’s security or freeing the hostages, which is obviously false.
"It’s an emotional rollercoaster and we don’t believe what the government says.”
Monday's discussion has spurred debate on Israeli social media. In a post on X, formerly Twitter, opposition leader Yair Lapid criticised Revivo's statements against a father of a captive.
"MK Eliyahu Revivo's pathetic remarks are another terrible disgrace for the Knesset. He should be ashamed that he supports a government that abandons kidnapped people," Lapid wrote.
Israel's war on Gaza has raged for more than 15 months, with the only exception being a weeklong ceasefire in November 2023 that saw Hamas release 105 of the 251 hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
Since then, eight have been freed in Israeli military operations. In June 2023, Israeli forces killed at least 274 Palestinians during an operation, backed by the US, to rescue four captives.
Israel has destroyed much of Gaza's civilian infrastructure over the course of the war, in addition to killing more than 46,000 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
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