Likud candidate Bonzel apologizes for remarks about returning Lifshitz to Hamas — Jerusalem Post

In Israel, Likud candidate Itzik Bonzel apologized for a Facebook post in which he said he would like to “return” 88-year-old former hostage Yocheved Lifshitz to Hamas. The Jerusalem Post reports.

Bonzel explained that he wrote it “in a surge of emotion” and did not mean it. He said that, as the father of a son who was killed, it was painful for him to read words that, in his view, demeaned Israeli soldiers.

Dispute after television interview

Bonzel, whom Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu placed 29th on Likud’s Knesset election list, reacted to Lifshitz’s interview with Channel 13. She and her husband, Oded, were abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7. According to the publication, Oded Lifshitz died in captivity.

In the television interview, Yocheved Lifshitz criticized Netanyahu’s government and said it had not returned a single hostage. She also said that if the current government remains in power after the elections, it would be “a catastrophe for the country.”

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In response, Bonzel wrote that Lifshitz had been brought back from the Gaza tunnels by hundreds of people whom he called heroes, and that some of them did not return. His son Amit was killed at the beginning of the war in Gaza.

Response from Lifshitz and politicians

Lifshitz said that Bonzel’s post was intended to distract attention from disputes over intelligence warnings before the October 7 attack, which, she said, Netanyahu ignored. She also said that the prime minister abandoned her, her husband and other people taken hostage.

Democrats party leader Yair Golan called Lifshitz a heroine and said Netanyahu should apologize to her. Democrats Knesset member Efrat Rayten said that wishing for Lifshitz to be returned to Hamas captivity was morally unacceptable and that Bonzel has no right to be a representative of the public.