Former national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir refused on Saturday to apologize to multiple recently freed hostages who said his boasting of efforts to significantly deteriorate the conditions of Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli jails led Hamas to worsen the treatment of Israeli abductees in Gaza.
Instead, Ben Gvir, who resigned from his position to protest the hostage-ceasefire deal in January, defended his conduct and said he was “proud of it.”
In a lengthy Channel 12 interview broadcast Thursday, captivity survivor Eli Sharabi said his captors followed the news avidly, and he cautioned that the remarks made by leaders in the media have “lots and lots of power.”
“Every irresponsible statement — we’re the first ones to suffer [the consequences],” he told the network’s “Uvda” program. “They come to us and tell us, ‘They aren’t giving our prisoners food — you won’t eat. They’re beating our prisoners — we’ll beat you. They aren’t letting them shower — you won’t get to shower.’”
Sharabi’s comments echoed ones made days earlier by another recently released hostage — Eliya Cohen — who specifically singled out the public remarks made by then-minister Ben Gvir.
But in a combative Channel 13 interview, Ben Gvir refused to back down or express remorse, accusing the media of “echoing Hamas propaganda.”
Eli Sharabi is interviewed on Channel 12’s “Uvda” program, in a segment aired on February 27, 2025. (Channel 12/screenshot)
“Not only do I not apologize — I’m proud of what I did,” he said, detailing steps he took to worsen the conditions of security inmates.
He claimed that Sharabi also said in his interview that Israeli Air Force strikes caused Hamas to beat him, asking the interviewers if that means the military should have avoided striking Gaza or talking about striking it.
However, Sharabi only said that in one particular case, one of his captors beat him upon learning that an IDF strike had destroyed his family’s home. He did not say that captors had routinely worsened the hostages’ conditions based on the frequency or intensity of Israel’s strikes.
‘Netanyahu knew’
Einav Zangauker, the mother of hostage Matan Zangauker and one of the leaders of the hostage-deal movement, claimed Saturday at the weekly rally in Tel Aviv that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was aware of the consequences of Ben Gvir’s statements but chose to do nothing, the Haaretz daily reported.
“[Senior officials] told me that Netanyahu knew about all the torture the hostages are subjected to,” she said. “He knew the meaning of Ben Gvir’s statements, how because of him [Hamas] tortured hostages. And he shut up and normalized [it] and let [Ben Gvir] continue abusing the hostages.”
Einav Zangauker, the mother of hostage Matan Zangauker speaks during a protest for the release of the Gaza captives, in Tel Aviv, February 15, 2025. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)
Throughout his nearly two-year tenure as national security minister, Ben Gvir repeatedly railed against what he described as luxury items provided to security prisoners, moving to ban fresh pita being served behind bars as well as to limit shower times for inmates. In the wake of the October 7 attack, the minister ordered new restrictions on security prisoners, including overcrowding and removal of beds.
Ben Gvir often cites his prison policies as one of his main achievements as minister, although his two years in office saw a significant rise in terror attacks, according to Shin Bet statistics.
Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are holding 59 hostages, including 58 of the 251 abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023. This includes the bodies of at least 35 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas has so far released 30 hostages — 20 Israeli civilians, five soldiers, and five Thai nationals — and the bodies of eight slain Israeli captives during a ceasefire that began in January.
The terror group freed 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that in the early weeks of the war.
Eight hostages have been rescued from captivity by troops alive, and the bodies of 41 have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors, and the body of a soldier who was killed in 2014.
The body of another soldier killed in 2014, Lt. Hadar Goldin, is still being held by Hamas and is counted among the 59 hostages.
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