‘As though we’re in Gaza’: Hostage families rally ahead of Passover for their freedom
Highlighting loss of liberty, organizer’s adapt holiday’s theme: ‘In every generation, a person must see themselves as though they’re in Gaza’; anti-gov’t demos set for 55 locations
Ahead of the Passover festival celebrating freedom, the families of hostages held in Gaza were holding their weekly rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday evening, with protests against the government also being held nationwide.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, organizers of the rally, tied their demand for the release of the captives to the message of the Jewish holiday set to begin Monday evening.
“The timeless Passover refrain, ‘In every generation, a person is obligated to see themselves as though they went out from Egypt’ has taken on new meaning – ‘In every generation, a person is obligated to see themselves as though they are in Gaza,'” organizers said in a statement.
“A moment before Passover, the festival celebrating freedom, a sobering reality persists: 133 hostages, men, women, children and the elderly remain trapped deep within Hamas’s tunnels in Gaza, deprived of liberty and drained of hope,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said.
Organizers said the rally would get underway at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square at 8 p.m., and announced that the speakers representing the families will be the younger siblings of those held captive by terrorists in Gaza: Ziv Braslavski, whose brother Rom Braslavski was kidnapped from the Supernova rave festival, and Roee and Ofir Angrest, the younger brothers of hostage Matan Angrest.
Also due to speak were Sophie Cohen Ben Dor, the daughter of spy Eli Cohen, the CEO of Midreshet Ben-Gurion in the Negev Dror Aloni, and Reform Rabbi Anat Sharba.
The protest comes the day after CIA chief Bill Burns, in a rare public comment, placed the blame on Hamas for the deadlocked negotiations for a hostage deal, saying the terror group had rejected the latest proposal.
“It was a deep disappointment to get a negative reaction from Hamas,” Burns said at an event at the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas.
The recent proposal was widely reported to offer a temporary ceasefire of at least several weeks in return for the release of dozens of hostages. Israel would also set free hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners held in its jails alongside enabling a boost in aid to Gaza, where a humanitarian crisis has ballooned amid the fighting.
However, the aftermath of an Israeli strike last week killing three of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’s children and four of his grandchildren was said to have contributed to the ongoing deadlock in negotiations, a senior Arab official told The Times of Israel.
Talks also faced a further setback this week as Qatar said it was seeking to reassess its role as a mediator between the two sides amid harsh criticism.
And earlier this month, two members of Israel’s negotiating team told Channel 12 that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be indifferent to the fate of the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza and has undermined efforts to reach a deal to secure their release.
A separate demonstration calling for early elections has been scheduled for 7:30 p.m. at Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv.
Thousands were expected to rally at 55 other locations across the country, organizers said.
Recent weeks have seen an increasing convergence between the protests of the families and the mass anti-government demonstrations that were a weekly event in the months before October 7. Some of the families accuse Netanyahu of blocking a deal for political reasons.
The government’s popularity has plummeted since the beginning of the war, leading to growing calls for elections. It has faced blame over its failure to prevent the October 7 massacre, while some have charged it has fumbled when dealing with key matters relating to the conflict.
A Channel 12 poll last month found that a potential coalition led by National Unity party leader and war cabinet minister Benny Gantz would secure 69 of the Knesset’s 120 seats if elections were held today, compared to a bloc led by Netanyahu, which would win only 46 seats.
When asked who they would like to see as prime minister, more respondents said Gantz over Netanyahu, by a margin of 41% to 29%.
The war began when Palestinian terror group Hamas led a devastating cross-border attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people. The thousands of attackers who burst through the border with the Gaza Strip also abducted 253 people who were taken as hostages into the Palestinian enclave.
Israel responded with a military offensive to topple the Hamas regime in Gaza, destroy the terror group and free the hostages.
It is believed that 129 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza — not all of them alive — after 105 civilians were released from Hamas captivity during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released prior to that. Three hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 12 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military.
The IDF has confirmed the deaths of 34 of those still held by Hamas, citing new intelligence and findings obtained by troops operating in Gaza. However, privately Israeli and US officials have said the number of dead may be much higher.
One more person has been listed as missing since October 7, and their fate is still unknown.
Hamas has also been holding the bodies of fallen IDF soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin since 2014, as well as two Israeli civilians, Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, who are both thought to be alive after entering the Strip of their own accord in 2014 and 2015, respectively.
President Isaac Herzog has called on Jews to leave an empty chair at the table during the Seder festive meal in memory of those who were murdered and kidnapped in Hamas’s October 7 onslaught.
