Knesset lawmaker Tzvika Mor of the Religious Zionist party submitted a bill on Tuesday that would limit hostage deals to one terrorist released per captive, JNS reports. Mor's son Eitan was taken by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, and held in Gaza for 738 days. Mor said in a post on X on Wednesday that his staff filed the bill at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, while he stood in the Knesset plenum taking his oath of office.

Under the bill, no negotiations would begin until an international body meets the hostages and reports on their condition, JNS reports. In wartime, the legislation would allow as many as five terrorists per hostage. Terrorists imprisoned in Israel "with blood on their hands" would not be freed. Neither would those who had served less than two-thirds of their sentences, nor those freed in an earlier deal who returned to terrorism.

Mor said the bill carries on the work of former Religious Zionist Knesset member Ohad Tal, according to JNS. It also builds on the conclusions of the Shamgar Committee, a professional panel appointed by former prime minister Ehud Barak in 2008, and on a bill Yair Lapid submitted in 2015. The committee, headed by former Supreme Court president Meir Shamgar, recommended in 2011 that the Israeli government toughen its positions in future hostage talks with terrorist organizations.

JNS reports that as part of a series of deals with Hamas in 2023 and 2025, Jerusalem released thousands of terrorists, including many convicted of deadly attacks, in exchange for the hostages abducted on Oct. 7, 2023, and the bodies of slain captives. Tal told JNS in 2025 that hostage deals give terrorists an incentive "to kill and kidnap more Israelis," adding, "We should put an end to this."

Eitan Mor was reunited with his parents at the Re'im military base in southern Israel on Oct. 13, 2025, JNS reports. His father now sits in the Knesset, and the bill went in at the same hour he took his oath of office. A father who counted 738 days is writing the rules he wants for any future deal.