Hostage families plan day of nationwide protests for Tuesday, accuse PM of ‘torpedoing’ deal

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum announces plans for a “day of mass public identification” with the captives on Tuesday.

Protests will take place across the country, with a central rally set to take place at Hostages Square at 8 p.m. following a march from the nearby Savidor train station, the Forum says.

The announcement comes a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to take over Gaza City and said he would hold talks on a deal to release all the hostages, prompting criticism from some hostage families for his failure to address a partial ceasefire-hostage deal that Hamas said it had accepted.

“We are in the midst of another premeditated torpedoing [of a deal] by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” the Forum says in a press release on its new protest plans. “The government is disconnected from the nation and is sacrificing its citizens.”

The announcement comes after the Forum earlier this week deferred a day of nationwide protests planned for this coming Sunday, to follow the mass demonstrations that took place this past Sunday.

The Forum says this past Sunday’s protests were “just the beginning.”

“This coming Tuesday, Israel will rally to the side of the hostages, to the side of the soldiers exhausted by the burden, to the side of tens of thousands of evacuees waiting to return to their homes in safety,” after being displaced by the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, the Forum says.