'Netanyahu wants to use release of prisoners as election chip'

By Serdar Dincel

ISTANBUL (AA) - A relative of a hostage held captive by Hamas in the Gaza Strip blamed the Israeli premier for waiting till the end of his tenure to bring back hostages and use them as an election chip.

"Benjamin Netanyahu is waiting for the end of the term to return the hostages - as an achievement for the elections," Jerusalem Post quoted Danny Elgarat, the brother of Gaza hostage Itzhak Elgarat, as saying on Monday.

Comparing the Israeli prime minister to "the captain of the Titanic", Elgarat added: "This is not a protest, it is a struggle. We are fighting to get them back and will not remain silent."

Recounting a moment from his latest contact with his brother before the latter was taken captive, he said: "When Itzhak spoke to me on the phone before the abduction, he said, 'This is the end, this is the end.' It's not his end, but the end of Netanyahu."

Thousands of Israelis began gathering on Sunday in front of the parliament or Knesset building in Jerusalem to demand a hostage swap deal with Hamas and early elections, Israeli The Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported.

Qatar, Egypt, and the US are trying to reach a hostage swap deal and a cease-fire in Gaza, as the first pause lasted only a week in late November last year, which resulted in limited aid entering the Gaza Strip, as well as exchanges of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners, mostly women and children detained in Israeli jails.

Tel Aviv currently holds at least 9,100 Palestinian prisoners in its jails, while there are an estimated 134 Israeli hostages in Gaza. Hamas has announced the death of 70 of them in random Israeli airstrikes.

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by Hamas which killed some 1,200 people.

Nearly 32,800 Palestinians have since been killed and 75,300 others injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities. Israel has imposed a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which on Thursday asked Israel to do more to prevent famine in Gaza.