'Hear my brother's voice': Shouting breaks out at Knesset over refusal to play hostage recordings

A Knesset Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee meeting devolved into shouting on Monday after Ofir Angrest, whose brother Matan was taken captive on October 7, was not allowed to play a recording of his brother taken in captivity.

“You didn’t allow the recording of [hostage Alexander] Sasha [Troufanov] to be played here, but I want everyone here to hear my brother’s recording,” said Angrest before committee head Simcha Rotman stopped him.

Angrest asked why he could not play the recording, adding that committee members “need to hear my brother’s voice.”

Other MKs at the meeting chimed in favor of Angrest being allowed to play the recording, prompting Rotman to issue warnings that they would be removed.

“I want you to hear my brother’s voice,” Angrest insisted. “You’re not agreeing to hear my brother’s voice.”

“Sir, it doesn’t work like that,” Rotman said to Angrest, insisting that if he wanted to play a recording, he needed to have submitted it in advance of the meeting so the committee could decide whether or not to play it.

“What do you mean, [in] advance?” Angrest said, adding that this was the first time he had heard his brother’s voice in over 400 days.

“Do you understand that?” He asked Rotman.

“I want to speak and say what my brother is suffering,” said a visibly upset Angrest, slamming his hand on the table. “Let me keep speaking.”

Angrest was given the floor at the committee after the incident

“I am 16 and a half, and I received my first draft notice for this coming December. I really love this country and am ready to die for it. Should I choose combat service knowing that if something happens to me, you won’t do everything to save me?” he asked the committee.

“I beg you to bring my brother Matan back. Soon, he will turn 22. I hope he comes back at 22 and not at 23 or 30.”

Angrest added that he has a sign of life from his brother and knows that he is currently alive.

“In another month, he could be in a bag. I don’t know if I’ll get him back or if he’ll be buried under the rubble or returned as a corpse.”

Rotman was also criticized Monday for not allowing hostage family members to enter a committee meeting the previous week.

Gilat Fish, whose nephew Sagui Dekel Chen is still held hostage by Hamas, told Rotman in a committee meeting on Monday morning that she and another family member had not been allowed into a committee despite arriving early.

Rotman emphasized that families were allowed into other meetings that day when space allowed.

Speaking to the committee about the hostages, Fish said that the families “are angry. We have come with a great deal of anger that again and again there are no negotiations.”

“No one is trying to release any hostages,” she added, saying that “no one is really trying to do anything. No one is trying to move things forward.”

Bentzi Rubin/Maariv contributed to this report.