It is well-known in Israel that the Hostages and Missing Families Forum is run by leftists, and in many ways, the organization’s activities are a continuation of the pre-October 7 protests against the Netanyahu government and his so-called plan to “crush democracy.”

What is less well known is the extent of the organization’s politicization, which was recently revealed by one of the organization’s founders, Liat Bell Sommer, who has since left the organization.

Before October 7, Bell Sommer was a leftist herself, a self-described “Kaplanist who burned the Ayalon.” Following the massacre, she had a desire to help the families of the hostages, and she volunteered to work at the Hostages Forum. And as one may think, her desire to help was not related to her political views.

“I came to work with everybody,” she recently told 124 News [Hebrew]. “I didn’t care who they voted for. Hamas didn’t choose to abduct people according to whether they were right-wing, left-wing, religious, or non-religious.”

However, she described that she gradually realized that her fellow employees and volunteers were there to advance their own agendas and would even only work with families of hostages with left-wing political views.

She continued: “At one point, I realized that there’s a family there who had a huge story, the Samerano family. Their son Yonatan, H’yd, the son of Ayelet and Kobi, was murdered on October 7, and his body was abducted by a UNWRA social worker in a UN vehicle.”

“This story remained behind the scenes for months because of the political views of the Samerano family,” she said.

“At a certain point, we began to lose the international audience,” she said, meaning that the world was no longer siding with Israel against the UN’s complicity in the massacre. “Despite this fact, no one would agree to publicize the Samerano story,” she added.

“At a certain point, I decided that I, the Kaplanist, would take it upon myself. I held press conferences at the headquarters, and we publicized the story. We traveled all over the world with the story—to Switzerland,  to Paris, to the UN —to explain how guilty the UN was. If it wasn’t for me, this story would still be unknown due to the political views of the victim.”

The interviewer interjected: “So are you saying that the Hostages Forum operated out of political considerations?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” she replied. “Despite the fact that this issue involved saving people’s lives, they operated and are still operating out of personal political interests—until today.”

Bell Sommer added that the Samerano family was not the only one with whom the Forum refused to work. It should be noted that she explained in the interview that there was no official policy dictating this policy or overt statements about it, but in practice, that’s how it worked.

“We’ve turned into our own enemies,” she said sadly. “Already before October 7 but definitely after October 7.”

Watch Ayelet Samerano speak about the abduction of her son at the UN:

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)