Israel’s Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu has said that the mission to return the captives being held in Gaza back to Israel should not be the primary goal of Israel’s war in Gaza, Al Jazeera reports citing Israeli media.

“They should be called ‘prisoners of war’,” he said in an interview to Haredi radio station Kol Chai, “and ‘prisoners of war’ are dealt with at the end of the war”.

“When you define them as hostages, the objective is first and foremost to return the hostages, but I think the hostages shouldn’t be the primary goal,” he added.

The Hostages and Missing Families forum condemned the definition and said that the majority of the Israeli public does want the hostages returned immediately, according to the Haaretz newspaper.