In Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, tens of thousands mark Independence Day with hope for freedom
Organizers say 100,000 joined families of some of the captives, gathering under the slogan ‘Our hope is not yet lost’
Tens of thousands of people gathered Monday night in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, where they joined family members of those held captive by Hamas in the Gaza Strip for a somber ceremony to mark Israel’s 76th Independence Day under the shadow of the hostage crisis.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which was formed to represent the families, organized the event as an Independence Day version of its weekly Saturday rallies where participants call on the government to reach a deal to free the hostages. It estimated the crowd at 100,000
The rally opened with a speech from former politician Haim Jelin, who led the crowd in a Yizkor memorial prayer adapted to address Hamas’s October 7 massacre, which devastated southern communities, including Kibbutz Be’eri, where Jelin resided. The massive cross-border attack led by the Palestinian terror group killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, while the thousands of attackers who burst into the country also abducted 252 people of all ages.
Those participating in the rally, united by the plight of the 128 hostages still languishing in Hamas captivity, were nevertheless gathered under a hopeful slogan “Our hope is not yet lost,” taken from Israel’s national anthem, “Hatikvah.”
On speaker was Sharon Sharabi, the brother of Eli and the late Yossi Sharabi, who were both captured by Hamas terrorists on October 7, with the latter likely killed mistakenly by the IDF in Gaza.
Sharabi told the crowd: “We don’t feel independence tonight, but we feel each other, that everyone is looking at the person next to him and respecting them.”
He honored his late brother, Yossi, who he called the “heart of the family,” noting that he “cared for [other hostages] Ofir Engel and Amit Shani so that they wouldn’t be beaten in captivity… [and] every day gave up half a pita to give to the children [in captivity] so that they wouldn’t starve.”
“That is a mutual responsibility, and for that we are all standing here. For Yossi, all the captives, and God willing, for Eli who will return,” he said.
Rabbi Zvi Hasid, the director-general of ZAKA rescue service, said that although the moment may be one of “mourning, crying, tears,” there was still a place for hope, assuring the crowd that from the “despair and destruction… the Jewish people will grow and fulfill its glory.”
“We see this in the last generation as well — from the Holocaust came a rebirth, and the Jewish people returned to its land and founded a state,” he added. The Hamas massacre was the largest single-day killing of people since the Holocaust.
Rabbi Tamir Granot, who led the crowd in a prayer for the safety of the hostages and soldiers, concurred with the rescue organization head.
“When everything is good, when there is no anger or pain, one doesn’t need hope. It’s possible just to live well,” he said. “When it hurts, when we are angry, when the heart burns when there is tension, when our children are captives under cruel enemies — that is when we need that material called hope.”
Two lawmakers from the opposition Yesh Atid party also participated in the rally.
Posting to social media platform X, MK Vladimir Beliak wrote that the crowd was made up of “Israelis who understand what Zionism is, what mutual responsibility is.
“We are here tonight and we will be everywhere, until we bring our brothers and sisters home, until we change the painful reality,” he said.
Fellow party member MK Debbie Biton, a resident of the Gaza border city Sderot where Hamas terrorists massacred over 50 civilians and more than 20 police officers, tweeted she was “praying that the hostages return” from Hamas captivity.
In the northern city of Binyamina there was a counter-ceremony to the official torch-lighting in Jerusalem, with participants instead extinguishing beacons. Organizers said it was a protest action designed to serve as a foil to the state’s official Independence Day celebrations.
