Margalit Moses who was abducted from her home in the Hamas massacre of October 7, and freed in the November hostage release deal, refused to attend a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday claiming it was a PR stunt.
"Thank you for the invitation," she wrote in response, "but I will not participate in a photo opportunity for public relations, while my friends are perishing in Hamas tunnels. I saw them alive with my own eyes and now, because you have forsaken them for a second time since October 7, we are getting them back in coffins."
Yoram Metzger whose body was among six dead hostages extracted from Gaza on Tuesday, was laid to rest in his Kibbutz Nahal Oz on Thursday afternoon. He was abducted from his home during the Hamas massacre of October 7 and was found dead with gunshot wounds in a tunnel in Khan Younis.
"Dear beloved dad was brutally abducted," his son Nir said over the open grave. "There, in the tunnels in Khan Younis, you met up with Mom for a while and that was a small comfort. You were left there with your friends until you were murdered in cold blood."
Nir said that if his father were alive and asked to comment on the state of the country, he would say that because of a shortage of thoroughbred horses, dogs are being saddled up.
The IDF said earlier that Metzger and the other five dead hostages were found having been shot. The military spokesperson said that Hamas terrorists were found dead near the hostages but may have died of asphyxiation.
Metzger's family criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for failing to release the hostages held by Hamas. They called for his removal from office after he failed to protect his citizens from the Hamas atrocities and then allowed them to die in the tunnels beneath Gaza, by refusing to agree to the proposals for a deal.
The comments by Moses and the Metzger family were the latest in the open dispute between Netanyahu and his government and families of hostages who have been protesting for months, demanding a deal to free their loved ones.
On Wednesday, the government announced it intended to hold a memorial ceremony one year after the massacre but decided to film it in advance and without an audience. Transportation Minister Miri Regev who is in charge of the event described the criticism of the families as "noise" that she will ignore.
Netanyahu's government has also been called out by many in the border region, for neglecting to visit the victims of the massacre or hear their concerns. Residents were told they must return to their communities, after they were evacuated when Hamas attacked, or lose part of the financial support that enabled them to live away from the border, despite rocket fire from Gaza on a near daily basis.
But Netanyahu has the support of other families of hostages, who urged him to continue the war. He met with the group of parents of hostages and fallen soldiers earlier this week.
After the meeting, the mother of Avinatan Or, who was abducted from the Nova festival with his partner Noa Argamani – who was later saved in an extraction operation, said in a live television interview that her offer to Sinwar is to take the sons of the defense minister, Shin Bet and Mossad chiefs, the chief of military staff and the coordinator for the hostages, in place of the 109 captives, because they were defeatists and said that Hamas could not be defeated. Notably, she did not offer Netanyahu's sons as potential hostages.
Unlike the defense officials, Netanyahu did not assume responsibility for the failings that led to the October 7 massacre and has refused to panel a national commission of inquiry to investigate them.