Hostage Families Demand Netanyahu Stop Using Dead Loved Ones in Election Campaign

Families of hostages who were killed in captivity have penned an open letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud party, demanding they cease using the phrase "We returned everyone" in their election campaign. The families stated, "We demand of you, if you have even a shred of humanity left, stop using our loved ones for election propaganda." They accused the government of trying to turn the deaths of their relatives into a political success story, emphasizing that the bodies of their loved ones returned in coffles, not alive.

"You did not return our loved ones. Their bodies returned in coffles. No election campaign can erase this fact," the families wrote. They criticized the prime minister's use of the phrase "We returned everyone," with Michal Lubnov, wife of Alex Lubnov who was killed in captivity, asking, "Why do you call it returned? You returned them dead." Nira Sarusi, mother of Almog Sarusi, also killed in captivity, echoed this sentiment, stating, "You should have been proud if you had returned them alive... But they are not here."

The families further asserted that the appropriate action would be for the government to apologize, take responsibility, establish a state inquiry commission, and step down, as some security officials have done. Instead, they claimed, the government has attempted to cover up the failures of October 7th and rewrite history.

In response to the Likud campaign and the letter, families of six hostages murdered in Rafah launched a campaign titled "We did not return home!" featuring billboards with their faces. The letter detailed the suffering of the hostages, including accounts of severe abuse and neglect, and highlighted that 46 hostages who were abducted alive did not return alive. The families vowed not to let the public forget their loved ones and insisted that "they did not return home."