MK Gilad Kariv says only public pressure will free hostages, urges Israelis to take to the streets

Labor MK Gilad Kariv calls on Israelis to take to the streets, arguing that only mass protest can bring home the remaining 50 captives still held in Gaza.

“Two hostage deals that returned [almost] 200 people to Israel only happened because of public pressure,” Kariv tells The Times of Israel at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, where he is taking part in a day of protests organized by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum over the government’s failure to reach a hostage deal and its decision to expand the war in Gaza.

“It’s true that the Biden and Trump administrations closed these deals, but without hundreds of thousands of Israelis in the streets, Netanyahu wouldn’t have even entered them.”

Hamas released 30 hostages — 20 Israeli civilians, five soldiers, and five Thai nationals — and the bodies of eight slain Israeli captives during a ceasefire between January and March, and one additional hostage, a dual American-Israeli citizen, in May as a “gesture” to the United States.

Prior to that, it freed 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and another four were released in the first weeks of the war.

Citing polls showing that most Israelis support ending the war in exchange for a hostage deal, Kariv argues that passive agreement is not enough.

“If a million Israelis don’t take to the streets, we won’t end the war, and there will be no hostage deal. It’s really in the hands of the Israeli public,” he says.

He posits that if there is enough public pressure, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won’t be able to continue the war and will have to agree to a hostage deal, despite opposition from far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, who have threatened to collapse the governing coalition if he does so.