At rallies, families urge leaders to take hostage deal on table, abort Gaza City takeover

Tens of thousands took to the streets across Israel on Saturday night to call on the government to urgently agree to a ceasefire deal for the release of the hostages held by terror groups in Gaza, a day after security services announced they had recovered the bodies of two captives from the Strip.

On Friday, the IDF and Shin Bet said they recovered the body of slain hostage Ilan Weiss and the remains of a second hostage, who was identified Saturday as Idan Shtivi, both killed during Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught in southern Israel.

Marking the one-year anniversary of the murder of six hostages by their Hamas captors as Israeli troops neared, hostages’ families urged the government to abort its plans to conquer Gaza City, arguing that military pressure only endangers the captives.

Before the main rallies in Tel Aviv, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum stated: “As plans move forward to conquer Gaza City, a hostage deal remains stalled at the negotiating table – serving as a painful reminder of last year’s lesson: military pressure kills hostages.”

The statement referenced the killing of Alexander Lobanov, Carmel Gat, Ori Danino, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi and Almog Sarusi by their Hamas captors last year.

The rallies also came hours after Channel 12 reported that Sunday’s security cabinet meeting would again not discuss the partial ceasefire deal that Hamas said it agreed to weeks ago, despite pressure from security chiefs, who are said to be planning on presenting a united front in favor of the deal during the meeting.

The deal in question envisions the release of 10 hostages along with the bodies of 18 slain captives over a 60-day truce, during which the sides will hold talks on the terms of the release of the remaining hostages and a permanent end to the war. The government has yet to formally discuss the proposed deal, and despite it being nearly identical to an offer approved by Jerusalem last month.

Reacting to the report, the Hostages Families Forum said it was “further proof” that the government “is turning to perpetual war and sacrificing the hostages, completely against the will of the people.”

Speaking outside the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv, the father of Hamas hostage Eitan Horn excoriated the government as “deranged” and said it was gambling with the lives of his son and of the other hostages.

“While my son is fighting for his life in captivity and an entire country is fighting to get him out of there, the government intends to occupy the Strip and gamble on his life and the lives of the living hostages, to make the dead disappear forever and also gamble on our heroic soldiers,” Itzik Horn said ahead of the mass rally for the hostages.

“Sitting in the government and cabinet are a bunch of deranged people that every citizen of Israel needs to ask whether these people are worthy of making decisions about their fate,” Horn said. “They don’t want them back, and they don’t deserve to lead us.”

Also speaking outside the IDF headquarters, Einav Zangauker, mother of Hamas-held hostage Matan Zangauker, addressed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying she would hold him personally responsible if her son ends up being killed in Gaza and would try to have him charged with murder.

“We keep having to deal with lying spin from Netanyahu,” she said.

“If Matan comes back in a body bag, it won’t only be Matan and me who pay the price,” she said, addressing Netanyahu. “I will personally ensure that you face charges of premeditated murder.”

Protests urge Trump to ‘make history’

At Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, thousands gathered as Gil Dickmann, the cousin of slain hostage Carmel Gat, called on the crowd to gather in Jerusalem this week to demand a ceasefire and pressure government officials directly.

“This coming week, we will go up to Jerusalem with one call, a deal before it’s too late!” said Dickmann from the stage.

In English, Dickmann appealed to US President Donald Trump to pressure Israel’s government into signing a deal to end the war.

“My cousin Carmel Gat was murdered in captivity one year ago; you weren’t president then, you weren’t there to save her. If you had been president then, maybe she’d be alive here today,” said Dickmann, who is a dual Israeli-American citizen.

“Don’t let Bibi fool you like he fooled president Biden, save these hostages, Mr. President, like you saved so many others,” he continued, using Netanyahu’s nickname. “President Trump, end this war now!”

Organizers then unfurled a massive banner visible from the sky that read: “Trump, make history.”

Tuval Haim, the brother of slain hostage Yotam Haim, who was mistakenly killed by IDF troops in Gaza in December 2023, told the crowd at Hostages Square that the continued suffering of the hostages in captivity attested to “our failure as a state.”

“How can it be that ministers take pride in thwarting deals, while hostages are being murdered in tunnels?” he asked. “How can it be that the individual who shot Yotam didn’t even receive a photo of him and didn’t know what he looked like?”

He said that it was only after IDF troops accidentally shot his brother, alongside two other hostages, Alon Shamriz and Samar Talalka, that the IDF chief of staff began to distribute photos of the hostages to soldiers in Gaza.

“They promised us that Yotam would come back, they said they knew where he was, they said he was on his way home,” he said, teary-eyed. “Today I feel like they lied to us, that they didn’t actually give every effort then and still aren’t today. They told us he was the first priority, but they actually had different goals.”

“Today is my birthday, the second birthday in which I don’t get a hug and a blessing from Yotam,” he lamented. “What I wish for myself is that no one will ever have to go through what I went through, that they will get their siblings back so that they can sing with them.”

Moshe Or, the brother of Hamas-held hostage Avinatan Or, told the crowd that “what we haven’t achieved in two years of war, we most likely won’t achieve in years to come.”

“But for the hostages, they have something to lose every day, every night. Their lives, their health, their soul. Every moment of hesitation costs them, and us, an unbearably heavy price,” he added, demanding that the government negotiate a deal to release all the hostages in one fell swoop.

“We need a deal already, and that deal must be one deal with everyone together. Not the Witkoff outline, not in waves — everyone, together,” he declared, referencing US special Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff’s partial ceasefire outline that has been the basis of all negotiations since Trump entered office, including the deal that Hamas recently said it agreed to.

Or said that the last time he saw his brother was on his daughter’s third birthday, nearly two years ago, and that she is now almost five years old.

“How do you explain to a little girl why her uncle isn’t coming back? He is alive but not here. Why does he not visit her?” he said.

“Amid all of this, the public agenda is occupied with other things. The government is dealing with flight plans to Uman and other nonsense,” he said, referring to the yearly Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage made by many Hasidic Jews to the Ukrainian city.

“How is it possible that the beating heart of this nation, our hostages, is not at the top of the priority list?”

In Jerusalem, hundreds of protesters marched towards the US Embassy in the city, holding signs calling on Trump to push Israel towards a ceasefire.

Protesters also gathered near the Prime Minister’s Residence, where they blocked roads and clashed with police.

Netanyahu’s residence, as well as the homes and offices of other top officials, are set to become the focus of upcoming protests led by the Hostages Families Forum, as they look to directly appeal to decision makers in an attempt to push them to make a deal.

The forum said it plans to stage a major protest in Jerusalem on Wednesday, following up on the several major protests days that have taken place over the last few weeks.

Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are holding 48 hostages, including 47 of the 251 abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023. They include the bodies of at least 26 confirmed dead by the IDF. Twenty are believed to be alive, and there are grave concerns for the well-being of two others, Israeli officials have said. Hamas is also holding the body of an IDF soldier killed in Gaza in 2014.

Hamas released 30 hostages — 20 Israeli civilians, five soldiers, and five Thai nationals — and the bodies of eight slain Israeli captives during a ceasefire between January and March, and one additional hostage, a dual American-Israeli citizen, in May as a “gesture” to the United States.

The terror group freed 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that in the early weeks of the war. In exchange, Israel has freed some 2,000 jailed Palestinian terrorists, security prisoners, and Gazan terror suspects detained during the war.

Eight hostages have been rescued from captivity by troops alive, and the bodies of 51 have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors, and the body of a soldier who was killed in 2014.