The families of hostages Matan Zangauker and Nimrod Cohen on Sunday petitioned the High Court demanding it order the government to publish the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal agreed with Hamas in its entirety.
The agreement has been published only in part.
In the petition, Zangauker’s mother Einav, Cohen’s parents Vicky and Yehuda, and Cohens’ siblings Yotam and Romi, also request that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the security cabinet and the government be ordered “to act immediately and without delay to implement all phases of the deal.”
The families asked that the defendants be ordered to explain why they had not published the full text of the deal, why they had not shared its contents with the hostages’ families, who “have a personal and direct stake” in the matter, or, at the very least, why they have failed to share the deal with the families of hostages slated for release in its tentative second phase, including Cohen and Zangauker.
The petitioners were said to be concerned that “the second phase of the agreement will not be implemented at all, or that its implementation will be postponed for an extremely long time, which could harm the well-being of their loved ones.”
“They are in the dark and in great uncertainty,” read the petition. “The passage of time endangers the hostages’ lives.”
The deal’s second phase would see Hamas release remaining living hostages, who, after the first phase, would comprise young men not considered “humanitarian cases.” Cohen, a 20-year-old soldier, and Zangauker, a 24-year-old civilian, are both in this category.
Nimrod Cohen was kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, 2023. (Courtesy)
Their families’ petition expressed fear that the deal would be “thwarted by political forces, chiefly the prime minister,” given the latter’s “repeated conduct in the past, and current reports that directives given to the negotiating team do not match comport with what is said in the agreement.”
Netanyahu’s right-wing flank has threatened to topple the government if Israel proceeds to the second phase, which would require a permanent ceasefire and full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Talks on the second phase were supposed to commence last Monday, day 16 of the first phase, but Netanyahu did not send negotiators to Doha.
On Saturday, Netanyahu, who was in the United States, okayed sending a team, but was reportedly “signaling quite clearly that he does not want to move on to the next phase.”
Einav Zangauker and Nimrod Cohen have emerged as prominent anti-Netanyahu voices throughout the war in Gaza.
Critics of the premier railed against him on Saturday after hostages Or Levy, Ohad Ben Ami and Eli Sharabi returned to Israel emaciated. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum has warned for months that captives were being starved.
Top row, left to right: Released hostages Eli Sharabi, Or Levy and Ohad Ben Ami seen on a stage set up by Hamas in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, before the terror group handed them over to the Red Cross, February 8, 2025. Bottom row, the three Israelis as pictured before they were abducted. (Eyad Baba / AFP; courtesy)
Speaking at a regular pro-hostage deal, anti-government protest in Tel Aviv Saturday night, Zanguaker accused the premier of “lounging in a Washington hotel while we watch a Holocaust reality show.”
On October 7, 2023, Nimrod Cohen was snatched from the Nahal Oz military base, and Matan Zangauker and his girlfriend Ilana Gritzewsky were kidnapped from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz, as thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza. Gritzewsky was released in November 2023, during the first, weeklong truce and hostage deal.
Seventy-three of the hostages remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF. Hamas has so far released 21 hostages — civilians, soldiers and Thai nationals — during a ceasefire that began in January.
Matan Zangauker (right) and Ilana Gritzewsky were abducted from their Kibbutz Nir Oz home by Hamas on October 7, 2023 (Courtesy)
The terror group freed 105 civilians during the November 2023 ceasefire, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 40 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the body of an IDF soldier who was killed in 2014. The body of another IDF soldier, also killed in 2014, was recovered from Gaza in January.
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