Former hostage Or Levy and family members of other hostages hit back over the weekend at Gal Hirsch, the government hostage point man, who said in a series of interviews that mass demonstrations held in Israel on behalf of the hostages aided Hamas.
In an interview published Friday by the Haaretz newspaper, Hirsch said, “The protests for the hostages helped Hamas. There was no need to create a feeling of urgency for us [to return them].” He told The Times of Israel that some Israeli demonstrations “amplified” Hamas propaganda during talks.
Hirsch was referring to weekly demonstrations held in Tel Aviv and other locations, attended by tens of thousands of people who urged the government to swiftly reach a deal for the release of the hostages abducted from Israel during the Hamas-led invasion of October 7, 2023.
“Dear Gal Hirsch, I’ll start by addressing you. I’m not sure if you really know who I am, because apart from the question of ‘Do you want to say something to Trump?’ you haven’t exchanged a word with me,” Levy, who was released last year after 491 days in captivity in Gaza, wrote on Sunday. His wife, Eynav, was killed at the Nova festival during the Hamas onslaught, when terrorists abducted 251 people from southern Israel and killed 1,200, mostly civilians.
“Gal Hirsch, shame on you! Who are you to speak about us or our families? Who are you to say anything to my 70-year-old parents, who had to tell a two-year-old baby that his mother was murdered and his father ‘was lost’? Who are you to tell grieving parents that they could have gotten their children back alive but because of the negotiations, they lost their lives,” Levy wrote on Facebook.
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“When the documentation of us [in Gaza] (including what wasn’t published) came to you, you chose to remain silent. Now it’s we who are to blame. We! The ones you didn’t look after, the ones you abandoned!” he said.
“When I came back, I heard the name Gal Hirsch a few times. Once he called my mother and asked her, ‘Would Or like to talk to the prime minister?’ So I said no. Because I don’t need favors from anyone. And now I see how the election campaign is the only thing that matters. Changing the narrative of what’s been going on here for more than two years,” he wrote.
Former hostage Or Levy speaks during a rally calling for the release of Israelis held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, at ‘Hostage Square’ in Tel Aviv, July 26, 2025. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)
Einav Zangauker, the firebrand mother of released hostage Matan Zangauker, responded to Hirsch’s allegation with a post to X on Saturday.
“Lucky that President Trump thought differently, and thanks to him and thanks to our wonderful people who went out to fight for our values and didn’t give up, Matan is here at home.”
“Netanyahu’s floor rag continues the campaign of lies and rewriting history. (This won’t work for you!!),” she added.
Einav Zangauker, mother of released hostage Matan Zangauker, speaks at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square on October 18, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
Carmit Palty Katzir, daughter of former hostage Hannah Katzir, 78, who died shortly after her release and whose brother Eldad died in captivity, wrote in a post to Facebook, “Have you no shame to speak about urgency, about the protests that put pressure on the American government that saved us from you?”
Hirsch, she wrote, “was responsible for the safety of my mother and brother. You were at their funerals, so let’s talk about the feeling of urgency.”
“You saw my mother in a video from captivity on 9.11.23, you saw what a terrible state she was in, and even then, there was no feeling of urgency. She was returned after 49 days in captivity, and within 10 days, she was already sedated and intubated. No hurry.”
“You had 99 days to get Eldad back alive, but urgency is for those who are hysterical. You brought him back, no hurry, in a bag,” Palty Katzir continued. In April 2024, the IDF announced that it had recovered the body of Eldad Katzir from Gaza.
Yonatan Shimriz, brother of Alon Shimriz who, along with two others, escaped captivity in Gaza but was mistakenly shot by IDF troops as they approached them, told Hirsch he could not know what the families went through.
“When your brother is kidnapped, and you hear from another hostage who came back what they are doing to him, and you stop sleeping, and food has no taste, and you are ashamed to get under the covers at night, and you are ashamed to live, then that feeling of urgency, you will feel it on your own.”
In a message to Hirsch posted on X, Lishay Miran-Lavi, wife of hostage Omri Miran, who was eventually released from captivity in a ceasefire deal, wrote, “I can also go and sit in [TV] studios and talk about the attitude that we, the families, were subjected to for two years.”
“About the gaslighting, the false promises, the meetings with senior officials in the Trump administration but not with the Israeli prime minister (scheduling issues, after all). About the time that Trump told us that there was a deal, but you clarified that it still needs approval from the government.”
“But I won’t do it, it is beneath us,” she wrote, noting that families are now focusing on rehabilitation. “That is what is important. All the rest is background noise.”
Miran-Lavi included a photo of her two young daughters, “who got their father back after two years.”
גל,
גם אני יכולה ללכת לשבת באולפנים ולספר על היחס שאנחנו, המשפחות, קיבלנו במשך שנתיים.
על הגזלייטינג, על הבטחות השווא, על הפגישות עם בכירי ממשל טראמפ אבל לא עם ראש ממשלת ישראל (אילוצי לו״ז, בכל זאת). על הפעם שטראמפ הודיע לנו שיש עסקה, אבל אתה הבהרת שזה עוד דורש אישור ממשלה.
אני… pic.twitter.com/eQF9LvmuTj
— Lishay Miran-Lavi (@LishayLM) January 31, 2026
Several hostages have said that their captors showed them footage of the protests in Tel Aviv, and that it gave them hope, raising their spirits to know that there was such strong support and that they were at the forefront of the public mind.
In his interview with Haaretz, Hirsch also stressed that he wanted to clarify his intention. “I can’t say that I am against solidarity events in Israel on the matter of the hostages. I am in favor. It shows the power of the Israeli people. On the other hand, claims that were attached to those protests… all kinds of fabrications about [Israel] torpedoing deals and Israel being the obstinate party, gave Hamas a position of power in the international arena, in the negotiation rooms.”
Hirsch told The Times of Israel that public pressure on Israel from the Biden administration “screwed up” negotiations and gave Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar “exactly what he wanted.”
He claimed that some Israeli demonstrations “amplified” Hamas propaganda during talks.
The terror group, said Hirsch, “acted to create a rift in Israeli society through very effective propaganda — and by creating the reverse picture — although they were stalling and not wanting to progress in negotiations and torpedoing deals, they pinned responsibility on us, that we were torpedoing negotiations and deals.”