As rain clears, Hostages Square fills with praise for US, Trump

Crowds are again filling Hostages Square in Tel Aviv as the rain clears out.

Standing in the center of the square, waving large Israeli and American flags, protest regular Miki Ziv says she has been in the square since 5 a.m.

The American flag, she says, belongs to a friend traveling in Thailand who asked her to take care of it for him.

Ziv is among the many expressing gratitude to the United States and President Donald Trump for achieving the hostage deal, while remaining critical of how Jerusalem handled the crisis.

“We understood that Trump would bring back the hostages and that’s what happened, unfortunately,” she says. “We trusted our own government, but God wanted this and Trump gave it a big push for things to happen here.”

Ziv sports a pink visor reading “TRUMP LAS VEGAS” in capital letters, a souvenir relatives brought back from the US for her.

“Whoever steps out of line a bit, they succeed, so hats off to him,” she says of Trump. “Without America, we wouldn’t be worth anything.”

She says the time has come for American Jews to immigrate en masse to Israel. “Now they’ll understand what Israel is,” she says. “There’s nowhere like Israel.”

Avi Loenstein, who, with his wife Ofra Zion, borrows the US flag from Ziv, says, “I’m here every Saturday night. This is the first time I’m coming here with a smile.” He says he feels “ascendant happiness” and skipped work to be here today.

“The US flag is the one that gave the push,” Zion says.