Hostage’s nephew warns anti-government, pro-deal protesters to ‘stay alert’

Demonstrators raise placards bearing the names of hostages held captive in Gaza since Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack, during an anti-government protest calling for action to secure their release, Tel Aviv on January 25, 2025. (Jack Guez/AFP)
Demonstrators raise placards bearing the names of hostages held captive in Gaza since Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack, during an anti-government protest calling for action to secure their release, Tel Aviv on January 25, 2025. (Jack Guez/AFP)

At the anti-government, pro-hostage deal protest in front of the Begin Street entrance to the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv, Shai Mozes, nephew of hostage Gadi Mozes, tells a 1,000-strong crowd, “We must not get swept away by euphoria” over the hostage release today.

“We must remain alert,” says Mozes. “Even today there are ministers in the government and mouthpieces in the media devoting energy to thwarting the deal.”

The crowd jeers.

He says Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who voted against the deal because of the hundreds of terrorists it will see Israel release, “is determined to sentence to death all the hostages who haven’t yet been saved.”

Protesters attend a rally calling for the release of the remaining held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, after four female soldiers were released from captivity, at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, January 25, 2025. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

Also speaking at the protest is Naama Zoref, whose parents Rafi and Helena Halevi were killed in a 2006 terror attack outside Kedumim, in the northern West Bank.

Two people arrested for the attack were candidates for release in the 2011 deal to bring home captive soldier Gilad Shalit. At the time, Zoref says, she protested against the deal.

“Since then I’ve come to realize that life is more complex, and today I rally here with you in favor of a deal to bring back all the hostages,” says Zoref.

“This is a deal that must be implemented entirely. There is no other option,” she says.

She says that if it were up to her, she would release her parents’ killers herself “and wear, like a crown, the privilege of saving a life.”

It’s unclear if her parents’ killers are slated to be freed in the ceasefire and hostage release deal.

Unlike previous weeks, when speakers delivered speeches from the overhead pedestrian bridge, the Begin Street protest today features a soundstage opposite the entrance to the IDF headquarters.

Protesters chant: “We won’t give up until everyone is back!”

After the demonstration on Begin Street wraps up, a column of protesters marches on to Dizengoff Square, in the city center.

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