From the Liveblog of
Saturday, January 6, 2024
Weekly rally urging return of hostages held in Tel Aviv: Israel ‘can’t be what it was’ until they’re back
Jessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel's culture and lifestyles editor, covers the Sabra scene from south to north and back to the center
At the weekly rally in Tel Aviv calling for the return of hostages still in Gaza, Omri Shifroni and Nofer Gilot tell the crowd about their former high school class, several members of which were abducted during the Hamas-led terror onslaught on October 7.
The former classmates come onstage with pictures of friends who are being held hostage or were killed. Among the hostages are Tamir Adar, who Kibbutz Nir Oz announced yesterday was killed on October 7; freed hostage Adi Shoham and her children; her husband Tal Shoham; and Itai Svirsky.
“We grew up and were educated where people called for peace,” says Gilot.
Shifroni notes the teachers who were killed or are being held hostage, the friends who lost parents, grandparents, siblings.
“Nothing will be what it was, but Israel can’t be what it was without bringing back the hostages and taking full responsibility for the failure,” says Shifroni.
Shifroni says that Tamir Adar didn’t get proper medical treatment after being wounded on October 7, and could have been saved.
“Itai and Tal can still be saved,” he says. “Bring them home now.”
Russell Robinson, CEO of the Jewish National Fund, says the organization will speak at college campuses and events to “tell the Red Cross, ‘Bring them home now.'”
“We are not silent Jews. All American Jews shall shout out now and forever, we are one with the people of Israel,” says Robinson. “I have walked the burned land of Be’eri and Kfar Aza but I have felt the soul of our Jewish people in that soil and we will work with everyone to build it again.”
“Israel is a nation of 15.5 million Jews, some live here and some live there, but we are one family,” he adds.
