Israel strikes Lebanon as US pushes for ceasefire: Live updates | CNN

The family of an Israeli hostage held in Gaza, Nimrod Cohen, is visiting New York this week to protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he is scheduled to speak at the United Nations General Assembly. The Cohens criticize him for pivoting attention to Hezbollah in Lebanon, saying the leader should instead be focused on a hostage and ceasefire deal.

“We need to talk about the hostages and we need to keep the subject alive so we don’t forget them,” Nimrod’s sister Romi Cohen said.

The family criticized Netanyahu for not making the primary goal of his government to bring back the hostages still held in Gaza as fighting moves north to the Israel-Lebanon border.

“Vengeance,” his brother Yotam Cohen said, “was the first goal of the war.”

“Now it’s Lebanon, and there is no deal,” his mother Viki Cohen said. “The first priority that the government says is to destroy Hamas. The other priority was to bring back the hostages, but this was not the main goal.”

Viki Cohen and her husband Yehuda also spoke at the protest near the UN, accusing Netanyahu of continuing the war to stay in power.

Israeli hostage Nimrod Cohen’s parents Yehuda and Viki Cohen speak at a protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York City on September 26.

“I want my son alive,” he told CNN. “I want him to get back his life. I want him to be free.”

Zahiro Shahar Mor, the nephew of killed Israeli hostage Avraham Munder, also warned against a conflict in Lebanon.

Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza “was a mistake from day one,” he said. “Don’t deepen the mistake. Stop the war immediately.”

Eran Etzion, the former deputy national security adviser and head of policy planning in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel, was at the protest as well.

He said he flew to New York “to voice the majority of Israelis who are interested in an immediate hostage deal and a ceasefire agreement.”

Netanyahu, he said, is a “rogue prime minister who is acting against the national interest of our country, against the expressed will and interests of the vast majority of Israelis.”