Hostage families to mark ‘400 unimaginable days’ as protesters seethe at Gallant firing
Weekly rallies first since large protests after Netanyahu sacked defense minister; protester said seriously injured when hit by a vehicle at a demonstration on Tuesday
Hostage families will mark 400 days since Hamas kidnapped their loved ones Saturday, in rallies across the country that are expected to draw thousands of Israelis.
The weekly Saturday night rallies will be the first since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, sparking mass protests on Tuesday. The Hostage Families Forum slammed the ouster, saying it was part of a push to derail a hostage deal.
The Forum will hold its central weekly rally Saturday night at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, with smaller rallies in Jerusalem, Kiryat Gat, the southern Shaar HaNegev junction and elsewhere. Anti-government, pro-hostage deal protesters are also expected to demonstrate on Tel Aviv’s Begin Street, outside the IDF headquarters.
The Forum said the Hostages Square rally, “marking an unimaginable 400 days,” will feature “public representatives reflecting the broad diversity of the Israeli people” who “will voice the public’s demand for the return of all hostages.”
The Hostages Square rally is set to feature just two speeches from relatives of Hamas hostages: Niva Wenkert, mother of hostage Omer Wenkert, and Ramos Aloni, whose daughters Danielle and Sharon and granddaughters Emma, Yuli and Emilia were released from Hamas captivity in November, and whose son-in-law David Cunio is still being held hostage.
Other speakers will include Steffen Seibert, Germany’s ambassador to Israel; journalist Shai Golden, who left the right-wing Channel 14 for Channel 13 this week, drawing harsh rebukes from right-wing critics; Chen Arad, brother of Ron Arad, an Israeli Air Force navigator missing since 1986 and thought to be held by Hezbollah; and Dolan Abu Saleh, head of the municipal council of Majdal Shams, a Druze town in the Golan Heights where a July 27 Hezbollah rocket attack killed 12 children and teenagers.
The press release for the rally did not mention Gallant. Nor did it include a demand for all the hostages to be released in a single-stage deal rather than a staggered one — a refrain of the Forum’s statements and rallies in recent weeks.
Protester seriously injured
Protesting Gallant’s ouster on Tuesday, a 64-year-old man was seriously injured after being hit by a vehicle in the Beit Yanai junction in central Israel. The incident was “an accident that occurred at the beginning of the protest when the victim descended to the road at night, alone,” according to police, adding they had been in touch with the man’s family several times since.
On Friday, Haaretz cited relatives of the protester saying police had called them just once, hours after the incident.
According to Shai John, who Haaretz said was at the scene and testified to the police, “a large commercial vehicle came and hit a guy who was standing at the shoulders [of the street].”
The man who hit the protester was “driving aggressively, and when we yelled at him he fled,” John was quoted as saying.
Protesters regularly accuse Netanyahu of thwarting a hostage deal out of fear it could topple his government.
Gallant, speaking after he was fired Tuesday, said his ouster was partly due to his support for a hostage deal.
He reportedly also told hostage families that Israel’s security chiefs supported a deal, but Netanyahu wanted to keep soldiers in Gaza even though Israel had achieved the goals it set on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed the south to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.
It is believed that 97 of the hostages remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Mediators Egypt, Qatar and the United States have failed to secure a deal between Israel and Hamas since a weeklong truce in late November that saw Hamas release 105 civilians in return for 240 Palestinian prisoners.
Four hostages were released before that, and eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive. The bodies of 37 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the 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 bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.
