From the Liveblog of
Saturday, January 25, 2025
‘We won’t take our foot off the gas’: Jerusalem protesters vow to keep pushing for release of all hostages
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on Google
At Jerusalem’s weekly hostage families rally, speakers strike a cautiously hopeful tone following the release of four female hostages — Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy and Liri Albag — from Hamas captivity earlier today.
“Liri, Daniella, Naama, Karina and Agam were among the soldiers that protected us that morning [on October 7]. Today, we succeeded in returning four of them,” says Shai Dickman, the cousin of slain hostage Carmel Gat.
Agam Berger, another surveillance soldier who was kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, 2023, is still held captive in Gaza.
“Now that the struggle is starting to bear fruit, we will not take our foot off the gas,” she urges.
A protest organizer reminds the crowd that “a second phase [of the deal] is still not secure; we constantly hear threats that it will not happen.”
Ella Mor, whose niece Avigail Idan was just four years old when she was kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, 2023, and released five weeks later, charges opponents of the hostage deal with betraying the “basic values of Israel and the Jewish people.”
“We fight to live, we don’t live to fight,” she says, urging the Netanyahu government to continue implementing the ceasefire deal.
The Times of Israel Community.