JERUSALEM: Gil Dickmann’s worst nightmare came true when he was told his cousin Carmel Gat, who had survived 11 months in Hamas captivity, had been killed in a tunnel in Gaza just before Zionist forces arrived. “She was so close to hugging her father,” Dickmann, 32, told Reuters outside the Knesset, where he was lobbying lawmakers to push for a deal to secure the hostages’ release. “We failed as a country, we failed as a community.” Gat’s body and those of five fellow hostages were recovered by Zionist troops on September 1, triggering an outpouring of grief and mass protests among Zionists demanding a hostage deal.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said increased military pressure would ultimately bring the hostages home. An autopsy revealed that Gat and the other five hostages had been shot in the back of the head at close range, less than 48 hours before Zionist forces recovered the bodies in a tunnel under Gaza.

“Military pressure kills the hostages,” said Dickman. “We know that for a fact.” Hamas has said in separate statements that the Zionist entity is responsible for killing the hostages, or that Netanyahu is responsible for killing them by obstructing a ceasefire agreement. Esther Buchshtav, whose son Yagev was killed in captivity earlier this year, said on Monday at a meeting in the entity’s parliament that a military investigation found her son had been executed by Hamas when soldiers came close to where he was being held.

Dickmann has become one of the most recognizable faces in the movement to push for a hostage deal. He has appeared often on Zionist nightly news shows and clips have circulated widely on social media showing him in screaming matches with Zionist lawmakers and giving passionate speeches at the Knesset.

Last month, he went to the entity’s southern border along with a group of hostage families who ran towards the border in an effort to gather sympathy for their cause. The high volume of protesters who demonstrated after Gat’s death, Dickmann said, showed that the Zionist government is disconnected from the will of the people. “The (Zionist) people want life,” Dickmann said. “We fight for the lives of the hostages. We don’t fight for revenge.” — Reuters