Activists and friends of Hamas hostage Rom Braslavski, joined by Otzma Yehudit Party lawmaker Yitzhak Kroizer, blocked aid shipments headed toward the Gaza Strip on Sunday night.
The protest, which took place at the Allenby Crossing to Jordan, was organized by the Tzav 9 movement—an activist group that opposes the transfer of goods to the Hamas-ruled enclave as long as the hostages are held there.
Activists slashed the tires of two trucks transporting aid from Jordan to Gaza, forcing the vehicles to turn back, Ynet reported.
“While the Israeli government allows the entry of tons of aid into Gaza, this aid goes to Hamas and it isn’t getting to our hostages, who are in torment—as we saw in Hamas’s propaganda videos of Evyatar and Rom over the weekend,” Kroizer told JNS on Monday.
He was referring to the release last week of a Hamas propaganda video showing Evyatar David in a severely emaciated state inside a Gaza tunnel, while Palestinian Islamic Jihad published a similar clip of Rom Braslavski.
Kroizer said that opposition to the aid policy exists within the ruling coalition, adding that “it’s one thing to hear that the government sent 200 trucks of aid—it’s another to see those trucks with your own eyes and then look at the pictures of our hostages.”
He noted that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had recently excluded National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir from a Cabinet-level discussion on continuing aid deliveries, reportedly due to his outspoken opposition.
“If we want to bring our hostages back as soon as possible, we must halt the flow of aid to Gaza,” Kroizer said, calling on Netanyahu to instruct IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir to assume full military control over the Strip. Only then, he asserted, could Israel begin implementing U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to relocate Gazans to third countries.
“In the meantime, we must continue protesting and doing everything possible to stop the aid trucks,” he said.
Netanyahu on Sunday accused Palestinian terrorist organizations of starving the hostages held in Gaza Strip for 668 days “like the Nazis starved the Jews.”
The Israeli military late last month announced a series of humanitarian steps aimed at refuting the false claims that Jerusalem was deliberately starving Palestinian residents of the coastal enclave, including “tactical pauses” in the war on Hamas.
Elkana Federman, who served as chief of security for the Supernova music festival during the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, told Ynet that he decided to block the supply trucks after PIJ published the propaganda video of Braslavski.
“He is starving in captivity while they are delivering food to the enemy,” Federman said of Braslavski, who was kidnapped while securing the music festival. “We cannot allow this to happen—we are fighting it.”
