Hostages’ families petition High Court to force a deal with Hamas

By not agreeing to Hamas’s demands, the government is violating their loved ones’ basic, state-guaranteed rights, 112 signatories said.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

A group of 112 freed hostages and families of those still in Hamas captivity in Gaza petitioned the High Court of Justice on Tuesday to try to force the government to make a deal with the terrorist organization.

“The goal is to illustrate that the State of Israel is deviating from protecting the basic rights of the citizens who are being held there, and it has been doing this for the last 15 months,” Renana Guma told Kan Reshet Bet.

Guma’s children, Or and Gil, were freed in the only hostage deal to date in November 2023, but their father, Yair, was murdered, and his body is being held among a mix of 100 living and dead hostages.

“In fact, the state is violating two Basic Laws,” she said.

One is the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, which states that every human being is entitled to protection of his life, body, and freedom.

The other is the Nation-State Law, which has a clause stating, “The state shall strive to ensure the safety of its citizens who are in distress and captivity because of their citizenship.”

The petitioners accuse the government, and especially Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, of violating their loved ones’ basic constitutional rights by “refus[ing] to agree to an arrangement for the release of the abductees held in the Gaza Strip” that includes bowing to Hamas’s demand to stop the war and withdraw the IDF from the coastal enclave.

They are seeking an urgent judicial order to the government to defend itself over its non-action regarding the hostages is not violating the Basic Laws.

Barak Medina, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, explained to Kan that although the court does not have the authority or ability to dictate to the government what policy to adopt, it does have the power to oblige it to provide explanations to the public and prove that it has an organized policy.

One of the court’s roles, he said, is to distinguish “whether something the government or the Knesset legislature does violates human rights or does not violate them.”

“There is not even a single government decision on the conditions under which a deal will take place,” he charged. “The prime minister decides alone, constantly changing the negotiating team’s instructions, without anyone knowing what the logic is and without considering the heads of the security establishment and without there being an orderly discussion.”

The “proper procedure,” he said, would be to hear the opinions of all the security authorities and receive a list of “the advantages and disadvantages of a deal and the consequences of not making a deal and to set some parameters, something minimal.”

Not all the hostage families agree with pressuring the government, believing instead that the pressure must be directed at those holding the hostages.

The Tikva Forum repeated its longstanding demand on Tuesday that that the Israeli government and the IDF “immediately present a list of clear steps that will be taken to strike the Hamas terrorist organization to the point that it begs to release all the hostages.”

These families are also firmly opposed to any agreements that do not result in the release of all the hostages together. Partial deals, they said, “undermine the ability to return the remaining hostages, while legitimizing and empowering Hamas.”

Even the very existence of negotiations, they said, “strengthens the terror organization and gives it a sense of control and governance.”