Gil Dickmann's worst nightmare came true when he was told his cousin Carmel Gat, who had survived 11 months in Hamas captivity, had been killed in a tunnel in Gaza just before Israeli forces arrived.
"She was so close to hugging her father," Dickmann, 32, told Reuters outside the Israeli Knesset, where he was lobbying lawmakers to push for a deal to secure the hostages' release.
"We failed as a country; we failed as a community."
Gat's body and those of five fellow hostages were recovered by Israeli troops on September 1, triggering an outpouring of grief and mass protests among Israelis demanding a hostage deal.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said increased military pressure would ultimately bring the hostages home.
An autopsy revealed that Gat and the other five hostages had been shot in the back of the head at close range, less than 48 hours before Israeli forces recovered the bodies in a tunnel under Gaza.
"Military pressure kills the hostages," said Dickman. "We know that for a fact."
Carmel Gat was taken hostage on October 7 while staying at her parents' home in Kibbutz Be'eri, in southern Israel.
Esther Buchshtav, whose son Yagev was killed in captivity earlier this year, said on Monday at a meeting in Israel's parliament that a military investigation found her son had been executed by Hamas when soldiers came close to where he was being held.
Pushing for a hostage deal
Dickmann has become one of the most recognizable faces in the movement to push for a hostage deal. He has appeared often on Israeli nightly news shows, and clips have circulated widely on social media showing him conversing with Israeli lawmakers and giving passionate speeches in the Knesset.
Last month, he went to Israel's southern border along with a group of hostage families who ran towards the border in an effort to gather sympathy for their cause.
The high volume of protesters who demonstrated after Gat's death, Dickmann said, showed that the Israeli government is disconnected from the will of the people.
"The Israeli people want life," Dickmann said. "We fight for the lives of the hostages. We don't fight for revenge."