Hostage’s niece calls to halt Gaza aid if Hamas delays release

Yael Savariego’s demand echoes that of former internal security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Yael Savariego, a niece of Hamas hostage Lior Rudaeff, demanded Tuesday that all humanitarian aid to Hamas be stopped if the terrorists fulfill their threat not to continue with the hostage deal.

“If Hamas indeed does not honor the agreement and we do not see hostages returning home on Saturday, we call on the prime minister, the Israeli government, the Cabinet members, and all decision-makers: immediately stop the aid to the enemy. Immediately stop the aid trucks to the Gaza Strip, do everything to resume the negotiations on this deal, and bring about the release of all the hostages, bar none,” Savariego declared.

Since her uncle was murdered while defending his kibbutz, Nir Yitzhak, from the Hamas-led invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, the psychotherapist has been one of the leading voices of Tzav 9, a group that believed from the start that no humanitarian aid should enter Gaza unless the hostages are released first.

Her call echoed that of former internal security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose party left the government in protest over the dangers of the current deal. He reacted to Hamas’s announcement by urging a full-scale assault on Gaza “from the air and the ground,” and later submitting a bill to the Knesset that would halt all aid deliveries.

The explanatory portion of the proposed law recalled that “at the start of the war, the State of Israel halted all humanitarian aid, severely impacting [Hamas] and leading to the first hostage exchange deal” in which “80 hostages were released” in exchange for a temporary ceasefire, the release of Palestinian prisoners, and aid.

Although Hamas broke the deal and the war resumed, humanitarian aid has continued to flow, which “in effect gives the terrorist organization ‘oxygen’ to continue controlling the area, reorganizing again and again, and above all, surviving.”

“Everyone understands,” the bill concluded, “that stopping humanitarian aid and conditioning it upon the release of all hostages is the only pressure mechanism that will compel Hamas to act.”

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, whose Religious Zionism party remained in the government, was of similar mind. He told a faction meeting on Monday that the only way to return the abductees was for people to take out their anger about the hostages’ plight on the Hamas murderers, but with a change in tactics instead of “doing more of the same.”

“We need to completely stop the transfer of humanitarian aid to Hamas,” he said. “Permanently occupy territory as a response to the terrible massacre and prevent the next massacre.”

“Of course,” he added, “we should also take determined action to … encourage the migration of Gaza residents in cooperation with President Trump, who understands well the root of the conflict and the only realistic solution. Only in this way can we truly do everything, everything, to release all the hostages and destroy the Hamas threat.”