The day after Israel’s Security Cabinet voted to seize control of Gaza City, the Hostages Families Forum organized a major protest in Tel Aviv against the decision, warning it would put their loved ones’ lives in danger.

But Tzvika Mor, father of hostage Eitan Mor, has been speaking out against the Cabinet decision for a different reason — he thinks the IDF should be pushing even more aggressively to take over the rest of Gaza.

Nearly two years since his son was kidnapped while working as a security guard at the Nova festival on Oct. 7, 2023, Mor, 48, has not wavered from his position that defeating Hamas must be Israel’s top priority in the war in Gaza, above the hostages.

Mor, who lives in Kiryat Arba, a settlement abutting Hebron in the West Bank, normally works as an ADHD coach. But since the Oct. 7 attacks, he has divided his time between advocating for the country’s victory over Hamas and serving as an IDF reservist in the Paratroopers’ Brigade. In the long term Mor wishes to see the entirety of Gaza become part of Israel, telling Jewish Insider in an interview on Sunday, “It is the land of the Tribe of Judah; it is ours.”

As chairman of the Tikvah Forum, a more hawkish minority group of hostage families than the larger and better-known Hostages Families Forum, Mor and several other hostages’ relatives oppose partial deals and the release of large numbers of terrorists, arguing that only sustained military pressure will bring all of the hostages home. Mor spoke out against the Israeli Security Cabinet’s recent decision in his interview with JI.

“The question isn’t what they’re going to do, but what is the goal. If the goal is to lead Hamas to negotiate, it will fail, just like in Gideon’s Chariots, which took five months and didn’t bring back the hostages and didn’t destroy Hamas,” Mor said, referring to the IDF operation that began earlier this year. “The goal cannot be to bring [Hamas] to talks; it must be to destroy them.”

Hamas, he said, is not motivated to return the hostages, because they have the food, fuel and water that they need to survive, but if they feared for their survival, the situation would be different.

Mor compared the situation to the story in Genesis in which Abraham’s nephew Lot is kidnapped by four kings, and Abraham took an army with him to fight the kings.

Abraham “didn’t talk to them. He didn’t pay them. He fought a war until they surrendered. That is the way,” Mor said. 

Mor said fighting to pressure Hamas to return to the table reflects an order of priorities that is both wrong and ineffective.

“The war cannot be about the hostages, and I say that as the father of a hostage. How many soldiers should be killed for the hostages?” he asked. “You don’t go to war to bring back hostages. You go to war for sovereignty, for deterrence. Then, when you win, you get your captives back.” 

Prioritizing the hostages “not only harms national security, but it also hurts the hostages, because Hamas learns that they’re the most important to us and raises the price all the time. It’s indescribable stupidity,” he lamented.

Mor warned that if Israel “concedes in Gaza, Hamas will never give up all of the hostages … And what would the message be to the Arabs in Judea and Samaria” – he asked, using the biblical name for the West Bank – “that kidnapping Israelis is the best thing to do?”

In the past, Mor said, “it was clear that there was no negotiating with terrorists. We would try to save our hostages and take risks, but we could not give in to terrorism.”

Mor cited research by the Yachin Research Center, which he said showed that four times more Israelis were killed in terrorist attacks between the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 and 2023 than in 1949-1992.

“That means that since Israel gave in to terrorism, more Israelis were murdered. It’s clear … That needs to stop,” he stated.

Asked about the concerns that other hostage families have expressed about expanded military action in Gaza putting their loved ones at risk, Mor responded with a question: “Is our war in Gaza necessary? If there weren’t hostages, would we still need to go to war?”

“The answer is yes, because [Hamas] cannot remain our neighbors after we saw what they can do, or they would do it again. They are religious people; they live for this. They don’t live for a nice house and a car and social status. Not for coffee shops and pilates. They live to kill Jews. They’re like zombies. You have to destroy them. The war would be necessary even if there were no hostages,” he said.

As such, Mor said, Israel must take the necessary steps to win the war in Gaza: “It cannot be that we will endanger 10 million Israelis because of the hostages. We need to solve that problem such that we are not harming national security.”

“We have fears, too,” he added, “but in war, some are hurt. Soldiers are injured in the war too.”

Mor and another one of his sons have been in combat units in the current war. Thirteen soldiers in Mor’s brigade have been killed.

Early in the war, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with members of the Tikvah Forum, Hebrew news coverage accused the forum members of being Likud plants or, at least, being easier for Netanyahu to talk to than the Hostages Families Forum, whose early leadership included political campaigners involved in protests seeking to bring down his government.

Mor, however, has been and continues to be critical of Netanyahu, who he said he hasn’t spoken to in six months, and of Likud ministers who he has spoken to more recently, including Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel and Agriculture Minister and former Shin Bet director Avi Dichter.

“I tell them these things, but almost all of the ministers in Likud align with the prime minister and say we have to agree to partial [hostage] deals,” Mor lamented.

Mor says that he has faced pressure for raising a different voice from the more prominent hostage relatives, and that “people defame and curse me.” In December 2023, the father of another hostage accused him on live television of giving up on his son, leading Mor to start crying. 

“The Israeli media doesn’t help. They lead the campaign” against him, he said. “But I feel that I am a messenger of the people of Israel. It is clear to me that the people of Israel want to win … They are connected to their roots, to the Land of Israel and to Judaism. They don’t want to be sold dreams and delusions that ‘it will all be OK, we can give in to terror and then deal with it later.’ We can’t deal with it. If we surrender, we will pay a higher price.” 

Mor has not seen pictures or videos of his son Eitan, 25, since Oct. 7, 2023, but he said that the most recent sign of life he received was from Israeli intelligence services in February this year. 

“We don’t know anything except that he’s alive,” Mor said.

In May, Eitan’s mother, Efrat Mor, said she learned from another hostage released in the first deal in November 2023 that Eitan is using his “incredible social skills … both for himself and for the other hostages” to lift everyone’s spirits. 

Eitan is the eldest of eight children.

“He is very strong, physically and mentally. He was very Zionist. He was a fighter and commander in the Golani Brigade” of the IDF, his father said. “He’s not soft; he doesn’t whine. He is strong; he’s a leader. We are sure that if he is with other hostages, he is helping them and strengthening them.”

When Hamas terrorists attacked the Nova rave, Eitan contacted an uncle because his parents do not use phones on Shabbat. He said that he and his friends were hiding, and sent videos of terrorists on pickup trucks. He also sent his location so that his uncle could pass it on to the IDF. The last time he was in contact with his uncle was at 10:04 a.m. His parents did not know that he was at the party, and they did not find out about the Oct. 7 attacks or that their son had been taken hostage until the evening.

Later, Nova survivors said that Eitan left his hiding place and saved their lives, which his father said “tells you the most about him.”

“He could have gone home at 6:29, but he stayed to save people,” Mor said. “He hid people and ran with them until he was kidnapped at 12:30, not by Hamas but by Gazan civilians.”