Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu generated widespread outrage on Wednesday when he suggested that Israel should categorize the 50 remaining Gaza hostages as “prisoners” rather than hostages, which would allow for their release to be delayed until “victory” has been achieved over Hamas.

Of the 50 hostages still held in Gaza, 20 are believed to be alive.

“The hostages should be defined as prisoners of war. Prisoners of war are only dealt with after victory,” the ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit minister told Radio Kol Chai in a morning interview. “First, Hamas should be defeated.”

He lamented that, in his eyes, the government is “confused” about its strategy in Gaza, and argued that this has led to the hostages being trapped in Gaza for longer than they would have been otherwise.

“Many people prioritize the hostages over victory — this is a mistake,” Eliyahu continued. “I’m calling to release the prisoners of war after the defeat [of Hamas], not before.”

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The far-right lawmaker also called for Israel to apply sovereignty over the Gaza Strip, claiming that doing so “would be good for both Jews and Arabs.”

People attend a rally calling for the end of the war and the immediate release of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Thursday, July 24, 2025. (AP/Ariel Schalit)

“Gaza should be Jewish, and then the Arabs will be better off too,” he said, not long after signing a letter calling on Defense Minister Israel Katz to approve a tour of northern Gaza by settlement groups in order to examine possible sites for future Israeli settlements.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement that “Minister Amichai Eliyahu’s outrageous remarks crossed even his own low bar.” It said he embodied “a profound moral and ethical failure” and noted that a majority of Israelis support a hostage-ceasefire deal.

“Those who speak this way about hostages languishing in Hamas’s death tunnels for 663 days weaken Israel and strengthen Hamas,” it said. “Prisoners of war are soldiers captured by the army of another country,” while the hostages “were abducted by a murderous organization on the sovereign soil of the State of Israel in the greatest failure since the establishment of the state.”

The heads of the opposition also slammed Eliyahu, with Blue and White-National Unity chairman Benny Gantz asserting that such rhetoric “endangers [the hostages’] lives and plays into Hamas’s narrative.”

The Democrats chief Yair Golan said Eliyahu’s statement was merely the admission of what he said was the government’s policy, which is to “sacrifice the hostages and prolong the war indefinitely.”

“After he proposed dropping an atomic bomb on Gaza and wiping out Gaza, now Amichay Eliyahu proposes abandoning the hostages to their deaths,” said Opposition Leader Yair Lapid. “If he is not fired today, then the Israeli government is admitting to abandoning the hostages.”

Eliyahu — the son of Safed Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu and grandson of the late Sephardic chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu — has a history of making incendiary remarks.

Last Thursday, he declared that Israel was advancing the destruction of Gaza and that the Strip will be made totally Jewish, drawing outcry among opposition politicians and eventually a rebuke from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Gazans crowd a coastal path west of Beit Lahia after managing to get aid parcels on July 29, 2025. (Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)

“The government is racing ahead for Gaza to be wiped out,” Eliyahu told Haredi radio station Kol Barama. “Thank God, we are wiping out this evil. We are pushing this population that has been educated on ‘Mein Kampf.’”

Eliyahu said that Gaza will be cleared for Jewish settlement and that “all Gaza will be Jewish” while Gazans who are loyal to Israel will be tolerated. He also denied that Gazans were not getting enough food, calling such allegations a campaign against Israel.

In response, Netanyahu released an English-language statement saying that Eliyahu “does not speak for the government” and that “he is not a member of the security cabinet that determines the conduct of the war.”

Eliyahu sparked international outrage in late 2023 by claiming that dropping a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip was an option, a statement called “detached from reality” by the prime minister.

This statement was later cited by South Africa in a motion accusing Israel of genocide before the International Court of Justice, prompting Eliyahu to later brag that “even in The Hague they know my position.”

Speaking with Army Radio last December, Eliyahu argued that firing Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara was the most important action the government could take, even as Iran was on the cusp of becoming a nuclear nation and with 100 hostages still held in Gaza at the time.

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara attends a Constitution, Law and Justice Committee meeting in the Knesset on April 27, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Netanyahu said Tuesday that the Hamas terror group’s “obstinacy” was preventing a hostage-ceasefire deal in the Gaza Strip.

After pulling their negotiators from talks in Qatar last week, US and Israeli leaders promised to explore new ways to bring home the remaining hostages still held in Gaza.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, the chairman of Eliyahu’s Otzma Yehudit party, is a vocal opponent of ceasefire deals and has threatened to collapse the government if Israel agrees to any deal that would leave Hamas in power in Gaza.

Ben Gvir has pulled Otzma Yehudit from the government once already, after a ceasefire agreement was signed between Israel and Hamas in January of this year. The party returned to the coalition when fighting resumed some two months later.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir leads an Otzma Yehudit faction meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem on July 21, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

By contrast, in a joint statement on Wednesday afternoon, the ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism parties announced that they will support any deal to bring back the hostages placed before the Knesset, saying that “there is no more important mitzvah than the ransoming of captives.”

“Despite the fact that we were forced to withdraw from the government due to repeated violations of agreements by our coalition partners, we are fully committed to our brothers and sisters, the captives in the tunnels in Gaza, both the living and the dead,” the Haredi factions declared in a joint statement.

“Therefore, the factions will provide support for any proposal for a hostage agreement that is brought to the government and the Knesset,” they said, calling on Netanyahu “to do everything in his power to return our kidnapped brothers and sisters, without exception, to their families as soon as possible.”

Earlier this month, UTJ quit the coalition over the government’s failure to pass legislation enshrining the exemption of Haredim from the military draft. UTJ was quickly followed by Shas, which, while quitting the government, has remained part of the coalition.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.