65,000 people said to be at Hostages Square to watch release of hostages from Gaza

An emcee at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv says 65,000 people have showed up to the plaza to watch the hostages be released.

She asks anyone who parked on the adjacent Shaul HaMelech Street to move their cars to make room for thousands more people yet expected to come, “to be together and receive the hostages who are returning after a two-year struggle in which you’ve walked with us.”

On large screens around the square, the hub of protests for the hostages since the October 7, 2023, attack, organizers play slideshows with footage of the hostages slated for release, filmed before they were abducted. Slow, hopeful music plays. Occasionally the slideshows are interrupted for live news broadcasts. The crowd breaks out in applause whenever a hostage’s relative appears on-screen, or when the broadcast shows a livestream of the square itself.

The crowd cheers as Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker and a leading activist in the rallies for the hostages’ release, is heard on Channel 12 saying in a phone call to her son, “there’s no war, you’re coming home.”

The crowd cheers again as Channel 12 broadcasts a first picture of hostages to be released, brothers David and Ariel Cunio, and yet again for a picture of soldier Nimrod Cohen.

In one corner of the square, people cram into a “prayer tent” for morning services, complete with the four species ritually waved on the Sukkot holiday, which ends tonight. On the other side of the square, a long line snakes around the cafeteria of the Beit Ariella library, as reporters search for potential interviewees and a woman with a wide smile on her face hands out cookies.