Yarden Pivko, the daughter of Itzik Gelernter, who is being held hostage in Gaza, spoke Tuesday morning with Nissim Mashal and Anat Davidov, and strongly attacked the anti-government protests on Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv.
"This morning, too, I get up and pray in the hope that my father will return to us. Unfortunately, we do not have the latest information, we are connected to a very small group of citizens who were kidnapped, with the thing that connects them being that they are not residents of the area. They were swept up in the situation and were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Friends who were with my father were murdered, there were four of them in the car, three of them were murdered, and only my father is missing, he is gone. We don't know what happened to him; we are in complete darkness," Pivko said.
"The people from the Kaplan protests are not the families of the hostages, even if among the families of the hostages there are those who think like, support or see the Kaplan protests as fitting up until the sixth of October," added Pivko. "And with all due respect to the Kaplan protest, I think that other topics like the Kaplan protests that were taking place here a year ago should not be mixed with the protest or the desire or the actions taken by families of hostages to return their loved ones. Didn't we learn anything?"
"It's harmful, I see the people around us. I see who receives this information through the media, I see what it makes people think, that at the end of a 12-hour activity of 140 families who think and work, haven't slept and haven't eaten for six months, at the end of the day what comes out is a quote from families of the hostages to Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu - 'We will hunt you down.' What? I didn't understand how it was related, how they were pushing the conscription law [into this]," added Pivko.
'There are ways to pressure the PM without blocking roads'
Pivko added that "it's fine that they want to put pressure on the prime minister, there are ways to put pressure on the prime minister that don't involve blocking roads and don't interfere with people's lives. Among the families of the hostages there is much action."
"Every family, every citizen, has the right to deal with this matter as they see fit. I respect everyone, but I think there is exploitation here and a bit of a takeover by other parties that are not related to the hostages at all, who are taking advantage of the pain of the families of the hostages and this protest," said Pivko.