Released Israeli prisoner says she received threats from Netanyahu’s supporters

An Israeli prisoner freed in a Gaza Strip prisoner swap said that she received threats and insults from supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for blaming him for the Oct. 7 attack.

Earlier, Israeli state television KAN interviewed Liri Albag, who was released about two months ago as part of the exchange deal between the Palestinian resistance group Hamas and Israel.

Albag blamed Netanyahu's government for the Hamas attack, saying: "You are to blame, and you need to fix what you did."

Following the interview, Albag said she faced backlash from supporters of Netanyahu's Likud party.

"I'm reading the comments, the threats, and the insults, and I'm scared," she wrote in an Instagram post.

She stressed that while she is not afraid of the people reacting to her, she is "afraid of what we've become. I didn't expect to get such reactions from people in Israel."

"You know what is the most difficult? That this [societal] rift is worse than our enemies."

The Israeli army renewed a deadly assault on Gaza on March 18 and has since killed nearly 1,500 victims, injured 3,700 others, and shattered a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement in the enclave that was signed in January.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed last week to escalate attacks on Gaza as efforts are underway to implement US President Donald Trump's plan to displace Palestinians from the enclave.

More than 50,800 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in a brutal Israeli onslaught since October 2023, most of them women and children.

The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants last November for Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.