‘Don’t stop the deal’: First rallies since truce began demand return of all hostages

In Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, relatives of captives urge Trump to pressure Netanyahu to maintain ceasefire after current 6-week first stage, bash Smotrich for opposing accord

Demonstrators raise placards bearing the names of hostages held captive in Gaza since Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack, during an anti-government protest calling for action to secure their release, Tel Aviv on January 25, 2025. (Jack Guez/AFP)
Demonstrators raise placards bearing the names of hostages held captive in Gaza since Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack, during an anti-government protest calling for action to secure their release, Tel Aviv on January 25, 2025. (Jack Guez/AFP)

Weekly protests for the release of hostages held by terrorists in Gaza were held Saturday evening in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, with activists and relatives of captives hailing the week-old ceasefire that has so far seen the release of seven female hostages, and urging the government to keep the ceasefire going through its second phase in order to guarantee the return of all the hostages.

The protests came after Hamas on Saturday morning released four female IDF soldiers who were kidnapped on October 7, 2023, and held in Gaza for 477 days: Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy and Liri Albag. Six days earlier, under the nascent accord, Hamas freed three female civilian hostages: Doron Steinbrecher, Emily Damari and Romi Gonen.

Saturday night’s rallies were the first weekly protests since the ceasefire and the releases began.

Before the rallies, hostages’ families made a statement to the press, congratulating the four soldiers released earlier in the day and calling on US President Donald Trump to prevent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from halting the ceasefire and hostage release deal before its completion.

Israel and Hamas agreed to a 42-day first phase that will see the release of 33 “humanitarian” hostages — female, underage, elderly, sick and injured abductees — in return for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including convicted murderers. The sides agreed to begin negotiations on a second stage two weeks into the truce.

A second and third phase, if implemented, would see Israel withdraw entirely from the Strip, a permanent ceasefire and the return of all hostages, but would also likely cause the collapse of Netanyahu’s coalition. The premier’s far-right coalition partner Itamar Ben Gvir has already bolted the government over the deal, and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has threatened to follow suit if Israel doesn’t resume fighting after the first phase.

Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, who is not set for release in the first phase, called on Netanyahu to “go out to the public and commit to implementing the deal in full.”

She asked Trump to “demand that Netanyahu implement the deal in its entirety and immediately start negotiations on the second stage.”

Protesters attend a rally calling for the release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, after four female soldiers were released from captivity, at “Hostages Square” in Tel Aviv, January 25, 2025. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

Itzik Horn, whose hostage son Iair is set to be released in the first phase and whose other hostage son Eitan is not, also urged an immediate start to negotiations on the next phase of the deal, and said: “We must bring everyone back in the second phase.”

“The agony of the hostages, the families and an entire nation won’t end until they are all back,” he said.

Yifat Calderon, whose cousin Ofer Calderon would also be released only in a future phase, said Israel “must not let Smotrich and Ben Gvir, the extremists who want to bury the hostages, thwart the deal.”

“It’s in Israel’s interest to end the war and bring everyone back,” she said.

Hardline ministers have often cited the sacrifice of soldiers killed in the Gaza war, saying ending the war before Hamas is utterly defeated would besmirch their memory and mean they had died in vain.

Yotam Cohen, brother of captive soldier Nimrod Cohen — who will also be released only in a second phase — accused Smotrich of “cynically using the IDF’s fallen for political needs” by “deigning to speak in the name of soldiers who have paid with their life” in his statements against the deal.

Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan Zangauker is held hostage in Gaza, speaks during a press conference in Tel Aviv on January 25, 2025. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

Smotrich has also been highlighting the danger of future deaths caused by the thousands of Palestinian terrorists and security prisoners Israel is releasing in exchange for the hostages as part of the deal. Critics of the deal point out that Yahya Sinwar, mastermind of the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre, was one of the Palestinian prisoners released in the last such deal, when Israel freed 1,027 prisoners in exchange for IDF soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011.

“How dare you speak about combat soldiers when you’re consigning my brother, a combat soldier, to rot in the hell of Gaza?” Cohen demanded. “How dare you speak in the name of IDF fallen when, through your actions, you are condemning to death soldiers and civilians who will be left behind?”

In Tel Aviv, the municipality building’s facade was lit up with the word “heroes,” welcoming home the four captive soldiers. The word flashed intermittently with a graphic of a bandaged hand with the thumb, index finger and pinky outstretched, in honor of captivity survivor Emily Damari, who flashed the “rock-on” sign to supporters after arriving in Israel on Sunday, revealing that she had lost two fingers when terrorists shot her on October 7, 2023. The sign has quickly become a popular symbol of the fight for the hostages’ return.

A few blocks away from the municipality, at the Hostage Families Forum’s central rally in Hostages Square, Ayelet Samerano, mother of slain hostage Jonathan Samerano, hailed the “infinite love” that hostage families have received.

Jonathan was snatched from the Re’im-area Nova music festival by a terrorist who was also an UNRWA social worker and murdered in Hamas captivity. His body and those of most other slain hostages will be released only in a later phase. Many hostages’ families fear the deal will collapse well before that.

“Every hostage is an entire world,” said Ayelet Samerano, speaking to a crowd of hundreds. “I cry out from the bottom of my heart — there is no room for calculations. Every one [of the hostages] should be brought home, no matter who they are, where they are, or what their condition is.

“To the government of Israel and the entire Knesset: Don’t stop the deal,” she said.

Ayelet Samerano, whose son Jonathan was killed and his body kidnapped to Gaza on October 7, 2023, speaks at a press conference in Tel Aviv, January 24, 2024. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

At a separate anti-government, pro-hostage deal protest in front of the Begin Street entrance to IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv, Shai Mozes, nephew of hostage Gadi Mozes, told a 1,000-strong crowd that activists “must not be swept away by euphoria” over the hostage releases.

“We must remain alert,” said Mozes. “Even today there are ministers in the government and mouthpieces in the media devoting energy to thwarting the deal.”

The crowd jeered.

Mozes charged that Smotrich “is determined to sentence to death all the hostages who haven’t yet been saved.”

Also speaking at the protest was Naama Zoref, whose parents Rafi and Helena Halevi were killed in a 2006 terror attack outside Kedumim, in the northern West Bank. Two people arrested for the attack were candidates for release in the highly controversial 2011 deal to bring home captive soldier Gilad Shalit. At the time, Zoref said, she protested against that deal.

“Since then I’ve come to realize that life is more complex, and today I protest here with you in favor of a deal to bring back all the hostages,” said Zoref. “This is a deal that must be implemented entirely. There is no other option.”

She said that if it were up to her, she would release her parents’ killers herself “and wear, like a crown, the privilege of saving lives” of hostages.

It is unclear if her parents’ killers are slated to be freed in the current ceasefire and hostage release deal.

Protesters demanding the release of all hostages held in Gaza rally on Begin Road in Tel Aviv, January 25, 2025. In the center is a display with a “rock on” sign made by former hostage Emily Damari upon her release days earlier, which has quickly become a symbol among supporters, alongside the words, “Only thus,” apparently meaning only the deal will bring freedom for the rest of the hostages (Eitan Slonim)

Unlike previous weeks, when speakers delivered speeches from the overhead pedestrian bridge, Saturday’s Begin Street protest featured a soundstage opposite the entrance to IDF headquarters. Protesters chanted: “We won’t give up until everyone is back!”

After the demonstration on Begin Street wrapped up, a column of protesters marched on to Dizengoff Square, in the city center.

Protesters also rallied outside Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem, similarly calling on his government to fully implement the deal.

“Continue the deal, stop the war!” demonstrators chanted to the beat of drums.

Near the main rally stage, young activists sat on the pavement wearing yellow blindfolds, holding posters of hostages who remain in Hamas captivity.

Four other activists stood above those on the ground — two girls embraced each other as the others enclosed them in a picture frame that read: “This is the picture of victory.”

Activists demanding the full implementation of the hostage-ceasefire deal with Hamas put on a theatrical display at protest in Jerusalem on January 25, 2025. (Charlie Summers/Times of Israel)

At the Jerusalem rally, speakers struck a cautiously hopeful tone.

“Liri, Daniella, Naama, Karina and Agam were among the soldiers that protected us that morning [on October 7]. Today, we succeeded in returning four of them,” said Shai Dickman, cousin of slain hostage Carmel Gat.

Agam Berger, another surveillance soldier who was kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, 2023, is still held captive in Gaza and is slated for release next weekend.

“Now that the struggle is starting to bear fruit, we will not take our foot off the gas,” Dickman said.

Ella Mor, aunt of freed Hamas hostage Avigail Idan, addresses a hostages’ families rally in Jerusalem on January 25, 2025. (Charlie Summers/Times of Israel)

A protest organizer reminded the crowd that “a second phase [of the deal] is still not secure; we constantly hear threats that it will not happen.”

Ella Mor, whose niece Avigail Idan was just four years old when she was kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, 2023, and released five weeks later, charged that opponents of the hostage deal were betraying the “basic values of Israel and the Jewish people.

“We fight to live, we don’t live to fight,” she said, urging the Netanyahu government to continue implementing the ceasefire deal.

It is believed that 87 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas in the October 7 onslaught remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.

Hamas has so far released seven hostages during the current ceasefire. The terror group released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that.

Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 40 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors.

Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the body of an IDF soldier who was killed in 2014. The body of another IDF soldier, also killed in 2014, was recovered from Gaza earlier this month.

Most Popular
read more: