Father of freed hostage files Knesset bill limiting terrorist releases

Knesset lawmaker Tzvika Mor (Religious Zionist party), whose son Eitan was taken by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, and held in Gaza for 738 days, submitted a bill on Tuesday that would limit hostage deals to one terrorist released per captive.

Mor said in a post on X on Wednesday that his staff filed the bill at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, as he was in the Knesset plenum taking his oath of office.

“I couldn’t wait. Nor did I want to,” he wrote in Hebrew.

Mor said the bill carries on the work of former Religious Zionist Knesset member Ohad Tal. It also builds on the conclusions of the Shamgar Committee—a professional panel appointed by former prime minister Ehud Barak in 2008—and on a bill MK Yair Lapid (B’Yachad) submitted in 2015.

Under the bill, no negotiations would begin until an international body meets the hostages and reports on their condition. In wartime, the legislation would allow as many as five terrorists per hostage.

Terrorists imprisoned in Israel “with blood on their hands” would not be freed. Neither would those who had served less than two-thirds of their sentences, or those freed in an earlier deal and who returned to terrorism.

The Shamgar Committee, headed by former Supreme Court President Meir Shamgar, recommended in 2011 that the Israeli government toughen its positions in future hostage talks with terrorist organizations. However, the panel’s conclusions were never fully embraced by the government, which was reluctant to put restrictions on its ability to conduct negotiations.

As part of a series of deals with the Hamas terrorist organization in 2023 and 2025, Jerusalem released thousands of terrorists, including many convicted of deadly attacks, in exchange for the hostages abducted on Oct. 7, 2023, and the bodies of slain captives.

Tal told JNS in 2025 that hostage deals give terrorists an incentive “to kill and kidnap more Israelis,” adding, “We should put an end to this.”