At limited weekly rallies amid fears of attack, protesters accuse PM of foiling deal
Hostages’ relatives call negotiating team’s weekend trip to Cairo a sham, pan alleged Israeli hit on Haniyeh for undermining deal with Hamas; some block Tel Aviv highway, 5 arrested
Several limited rallies were held Saturday night around the country calling for the release of hostages and new elections, with turnout far lower than usual amid fears of a major attack by Iran and Hezbollah.
Some 1,000 people attended a rally near Hostages Square in Tel Aviv. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum had originally planned to screen a documentary on Saturday evening in place of its weekly rally, having this week marked 300 days since the abductees were taken and amid the Iran attack threat, but in a statement on Saturday afternoon instead called for supporters to take to the streets.
Still, turnout was low at the different events.
The rallies came as Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar and Mossad chief David Barnea returned from hostages-for-ceasefire negotiations in Cairo Saturday, but no progress was announced following those talks.
Protesters in the Tel Aviv rally marched from Hostages Square to the IDF Kirya headquarters’ eastern entrance on Begin Road. Hundreds of demonstrators blocked the Ayalon Highway, clashing with mounted police, and at least five protesters were arrested.
In clashes on Begin Street, lawmakers Naama Lazimi and Gilad Kariv of the opposition Labor party shouted at police to refrain from pushing the demonstrators, who the lawmakers argued were nonviolent.
Hostages’ relatives were incensed by reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had aggressively rebuffed security officials’ warnings that his new eleventh-hour demands from Hamas in ceasefire talks were derailing the negotiations to secure a truce in Gaza and the release of hostages held there.
“The negotiating team was sent to Cairo this morning and has already had time to come back,” said Einav Zanguaker, the mother of hostage Matan Zanguaker and a prominent activist for the captives’ release. “What did you need to put on this show for, if you were sent with the roadblocks Netanyahu put in?”
“David Barnea, Ronen Bar — stop cooperating with the criminal prime minister. His hands are awash in the blood of the victims, and if you continue — yours will be, too,” said Zangauker. “Tell the public what you tell us behind closed doors — that Netanyahu is not interested in a deal and doesn’t want the hostages home.”
Danny Elgarat, brother of hostage Itzik Elgarat, addressed Netanyahu, after Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh was killed in an explosion in Tehran on Wednesday. Iran has vowed to exact revenge on Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied its role in the blast.
“Good for you!” he said wryly. “Haniyeh’s elimination is, in fact, the elimination of the hostages and of the negotiations.”
That assassination came hours after an Israeli airstrike on Beirut killed Hezbollah deputy leader Fuad Shukr. The Iran-backed terror group’s head Hassan Nasrallah threatened at Shukr’s funeral Thursday that Israel would “weep” for its actions.
Demonstrations were also held outside Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s home in Amikam, near Hadera, and by the Jerusalem home of Shas party leader Aryeh Deri.
Anti-government protesters also held protests in other locations, including outside Netanyahu’s Caesarea and Jerusalem homes. An impromptu protest was held in Kibbutz Ein HaHoresh, in central Israel’s Emek Hefer, where National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir spent the weekend.
Other rallies took place in Haifa, at Hemed Junction near Jerusalem and in the capital itself, in Hadera, at Amiad Junction in the Galilee and in Ness Ziona near Rehovot.
Thousands attended the rally outside Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem, where former diplomat Eran Etzion argued that “the time has come for a deal, and the time has come for elections.
He insisted that a hostage deal “has been ready” to be signed for a long time, but that Netanyahu was deliberately stalling negotiations for “political, personal and criminal reasons. He is stirring up a regional war with the worst imaginable starting circumstances, when Israel is weak, isolated, and the IDF is worn out.
Etzion called on Gallant and other heads of Israel’s security establishment to pressure Netanyahu into a deal.
“Your time has come,” he urged them. “The time has come to bang on his table and say: ‘You have no authority to kill the deal and the hostages!’”
Speaking at the Haifa rally, former defense minister and former IDF chief of staff Moshe Ya’alon said that “abandoning the hostages for another day, another hour, another minute, is a crime and a moral stain that will live in infamy.
“As far as the government and its head are concerned, it’s better to sacrifice [the hostages] and not end the war,” said Ya’alon. “Because as long as there is war, they will stay in power.”
It is believed that 111 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas during the October 7 onslaught remain in Gaza, including the bodies of 39 confirmed dead by the IDF. The attack saw thousands of Hamas-led terrorists storm southern Israel to kill nearly 1,200 people. An additional two people and two bodies of soldiers held hostage from before the war also remain in Gaza.
On Saturday afternoon, hundreds attended an anti-war demonstration in Umm al-Fahm. The demonstration was organized by the Peace Partnership, a coalition of leftwing and binational groups that coalesced after October 7. Protesters carried banners calling for and to the war in Gaza and opposing conditions faced by Palestinian security prisoners in Israel.
“What is happening in Gaza has not happened anywhere else in the world and we have not seen anything like it,” said Umm al-Fahm Mayor Samir Mahamed. “This is a destructive war that the world is watching, live, without lifting a finger. It’s time for this war to stop and for world leaders to step up and stop it so that we can save what remains.”
Four people were arrested during the protest, including Adham Jabareen, the chairman of the local popular committee, and Mourid Farid, head of the local chapter of the Balad party and a member of the city council. Police also confiscated a number of Palestinian flags during the protest.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 39,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far. The toll, which cannot be independently verified, does not distinguish between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 15,000 combatants in battle and some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 attack.
Canaan Lidor contributed to this report.
