Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Thursday that the “supreme objective” of war is Israel’s “victory” and has relegated to the background the liberation of hostages that were kidnapped by the Islamic resistance movement (Hamas) during the attacks perpetrated on October 7 and that resulted in 1,200 dead on Israeli soil.
“We have many objectives in this war. We want to bring all the hostages back. We have made 147 of them return alive of a total of 196,” he said during an act that is part of the celebrations of Independence Day, which commemorates the declaration of 1948, when David Ben Gurion proclaimed the end of the British mandate and the birth of the state of Israel.
In this regard, he clarified that there are still 24 kidnapped living hostages to bring “back home.” “We want to recover them all: the living already the dead,” he said, while indicating that this is a “very important objective.”
“But there is a superior one. The supreme objective is the victory over our enemies, and we will achieve it,” he clarified, in statements that have raised the criticisms of some relatives of the hostages who follow in the Gaza Strip.
The Hostage and Disappeared Family Forum, the main organization that combines the relatives of the kidnapped, has lashed out at the words of the prime minister and has claimed this issue. “It is no less important, it is the superior objective that must guide the actions of the Israeli government,” said the group in a statement.
Thus, the organization has said feeling “alarmed” by the words of Netanyahu, who add to those of the Minister of Finance, the ultra -rightist Bezalel Smotrich, and which they consider “contrary to the feeling of the majority of the Israeli population”, who “wishes the return of the hostages above all.”
