With the body of Ran Gvili, the last remaining hostage in Gaza, located and returned to Israel for burial, Gal Hirsch is speaking publicly for the first time, giving multiple interviews to the Hebrew media.

Blessedly, his job as Israel’s coordinator for hostages and missing persons is done.

Hirsch was responsible for facilitating and overseeing the recovery and release of all hostages held by Hamas and other barbaric groups in the Strip.

In his interviews, Hirsch describes being summoned by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Oct. 8, 2023, the day after the Hamas massacre and mass abductions, and asked whether he was up to the task.

Having just recovered from cancer, he could have said no. Instead, he set aside personal considerations to engage in what he would come to view as the most difficult mission that he’d ever undertaken.

Few understood the complexity of the role. Like all Israelis, Hirsch felt the devastation of the Oct. 7 atrocities. Like everyone in the country, he knew civilians and soldiers who had been killed, wounded or kidnapped. But he didn’t have time to absorb the horror or mourn the dead.  

To make matters more complicated, while being sympathetic to the families of the hostages with whom he was in constant touch, he had to try to contain an unavoidable, but counterproductive, phenomenon: national rage at the government and military for having dropped the security ball so severely on that fateful Shabbat/Simchat Torah morning nearly two and a half years ago.

Worse, leaders of the “anybody but Bibi” protest movement, which had been active well before the tragedy, used the dire situation as part of its campaign to oust Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition. Sadly, the cynical move to rile up the justifiably panicked parents and siblings of the captives was successful—at least among many of them.

Those who opposed turning national anger inward, rather than focusing on the barbarians responsible, were silenced and shunned. And any request by Hirsch, Netanyahu and other members of the government that the families not play into Hamas’s hands was dismissed as illegitimate political posturing for the purpose of hanging on to their seats for dear life.

Repeated assurances that everything possible was being done to free the hostages were met by protest leaders and their followers with hate-spewing bullhorns. The weekly Saturday-night ritual on Tel Aviv’s Kaplan Street, adjacent to Defense Ministry headquarters, and at Hostages Square outside the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, became a staple of the war.

Posters and chants accusing Netanyahu of sabotaging deals to free the hostages were fed and echoed by left-wing journalists.

The rhetoric wasn’t merely unwarranted; it was reckless, as it constantly dovetailed with Hamas’s psychological-warfare messaging. According to Hirsch, the release of coerced hostage videos sometimes coincided with and echoed the emotional language and sense of urgency dominating the protests in Israel.

In other words, Hamas didn’t need to invent a new script. It closely followed Israeli discourse and exploited it.

It was psychological warfare of the highest order, with the main theme being that Israeli military pressure was endangering the hostages whose release should be obtained “at any and all cost.”

The result was a closed feedback loop: Israeli protesters blamed the government; Hamas repackaged their slogans in the texts that the hostages were forced to recite in videos, which fueled more protests and an increase in Hamas demands.

Addressing the call to bring the hostages home “now,” Hirsch told the panel of the Channel 14 show “The Patriots” that he had tried to convey to the families that the mantra was not only unnecessary—since every single Israeli wanted that—but strengthened Hamas’s resolve.

For this, Hirsch was subjected to relentless harassment. Coffins were placed outside his home. He and his family received death threats, with those against his wife including sexually explosive content.

His tireless work for the past 27 months deserves acknowledgment, if not gratitude. Sadly, he won’t be granted either from his detractors, despite the fact that there are no longer any hostages left in Gaza. The rest of us, however, should—and do—salute him for his efforts.    

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