Addressing Tel Aviv rally remotely, NYC mayor calls for immediate release of hostages

In a filmed address, New York Mayor Eric Adams reiterates his call for the release of hostages held in Gaza, using rhetoric that echoes the demands of families seeking an agreement with Hamas.

“Not one more day, not one more night, we must not rest until all your hostages are freed and allowed to come home to families without delay. In the name of all that’s right and just,” Adams says in his address, which is being projected on a giant screen at Tel Aviv’s so-called Hostages Square.

The thousands of participants in tonight’s rally applaud passionately in response to the address by Adams, who also notes that he is mayor of the city with the largest Jewish population in the world.

As in previous weeks, the participants chant “All of them now.”

The Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum supports a new agreement with Hamas. But other families with relatives held in Gaza, including those represented by the Tikvah forum, are not pushing for a deal, arguing instead for military action or an agreement with terms better than those understood to be the minimum now acceptable to Hamas.