'Official struggle is over': Hostage Forum decides to close office, focus on securing return of last 3 deceased hostages

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a large Israeli NGO, was established after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack with the goal of supporting the families of the victims and hostages. During the past two years, the organization has regularly held large demonstrations in Tel Aviv and elsewhere on behalf of the hostages and their families. The NGO, which was completely financed by donations from private individuals, received between $35 to $40 million during the past two years. 

However, after the last 20 living hostages were released last month and Hamas also returned most deceased hostages, the organization has decided to close its office and dramatically downscale its work. Focus will shift towards supporting the families of the three remaining deceased hostages that are still held by the terrorist organization Hamas and its Islamist allies in Gaza. 

“The forum will use all means at its disposal and, together with the families of those who have returned, will continue to raise and amplify the voices of the families,” the NGO said in an official statement. 

“The official struggle is over,” announced Lior Chorev, the organization’s strategy chief. 

“We have to adapt our activities to the fact that there is a deal, and a process that isn’t up to us,” he continued. “There are three hostages left, and it’s unclear how much time it will take to bring them home."

“There’s a hostage deal, and the US and Israel stand behind it,” he emphasized.  

The planned mass rally on Saturday evening at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square for the hostages in Gaza therefore appears to be the organization’s last large public event. 

Chorev revealed that the NGO intends to offer its remaining financial resources to the families of the three remaining deceased hostages in Gaza. Hamas and its allies still hold the remains of the Israeli citizens Dror Or and Ran Gvili as well as the Thai national Sudthisak Rinthalak.

“It doesn’t seem right to continue the rallies because it doesn’t serve them,” Chorev explained. “We recommended that we stop holding them at the end of the month, but they’ll decide for themselves." 

“There are differences between the families, but they’ll have to decide for themselves,” Chorev admitted.

Shira Gvili – whose murdered brother Ran is still being held in Gaza – praised the persistent work of The Hostages and Missing Families Forum during the past two years. 

“They created this loving embrace for us,” Gvili said in an interview with Israeli Channel 12. She also articulated understanding for the NGO’s decision to dramatically downscale its work. 

“You can’t have an entire building for three families,” Gvili assessed. “The struggle is more intimate now."

Hamas claims that it is trying to locate the bodies of the three remaining hostages. However, it is currently unclear when their remains will be handed over to Israel. Elad Or, the brother of the murdered hostage Dror Or, was reportedly informed by the Israeli military that it would require complex digging work to reclaim his brother’s body. 

The Israel Defense Forces shared its lessons from two years of multifront war against Iran and its terrorist proxies at a recent seminar held with militaries from some dozen friendly nations including the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom.