‘Make a deal, Bibi’: A year since Nov. 2023 truce, thousands rally for hostages

Thousands of Israelis gathered in protests across Israel on Saturday evening, calling for a deal to free hostages held in Gaza since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre and marking a year since the end of a week-long hostage-ceasefire deal last November — which negotiators have failed to replicate despite intensive efforts.

Some 2,000 people attended the main rally in Tel Aviv, where several people who were kidnapped by terrorists and freed in the November deal addressed the rally, along with some relatives of hostages still held in Gaza.

Thomas Hand, whose 9-year-old daughter Emily was kidnapped from Kibbutz Be’eri and released after 50 days in captivity, told the crowd at the rally, “I am extremely lucky to have got my little Emily back in one piece.”

“I cannot imagine how terrified she must have been,” the Irish-Israeli father said in English, to applause.

“When being taken from Be’eri, Emily saw dead people — people she knew and recognized, lying on the road,” he continued. “It was so bad she thought that everyone she knew — including me — was killed or being killed.”

Hand said his daughter had told him the water she was given in captivity was putrid; that the hostages were forced to use the bathroom with the door open while a male terrorist watched them; and that “they were told to repeat words in Arabic, and at the end, they were told: ‘You’re Muslim now.'”

“Make a deal, Bibi,” he said, using Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s nickname. “You have had more than enough time to get the job done.”

Earlier on Saturday, Channel 12 published a poll showing overwhelming public support (71 percent) for a hostage deal that ends the war in Gaza, compared to 15% who oppose such terms and 14% who don’t know.

And even among supporters of Netanyahu’s conservative bloc, 56% said they would back a deal that stops the war in return for the hostages, 24% oppose it and 20% don’t know.

Emily spoke briefly in Hebrew after her father’s speech: “I know what it’s like to be there so I don’t want to imagine what it’s like for those who are there now.”

The young captivity survivor said she was held along with slain hostage Itai Svirsky and with Noa Argamani, who was rescued from central Gaza in June by security forces.

“Noa came back, but Itai won’t,” she said. “We have to bring the hostages back before it’s too late.” In English, she shouted: “Bring them home now!”

Emily is one of 251 people, mostly civilians, who were kidnapped on October 7, when some 3,000 Hamas-led terrorists burst across the border into Israel by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200 people, many amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.

Hours before the Saturday evening protests, Hamas published a propaganda video of American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander. At the main rally at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, his mother and grandmother addressed the crowd.

“This is not a Hollywood movie,” said Yael Alexander, Edan’s mother, after the video played for the crowd. “This is the bad movie we have been living for 421 days since October 7.”

“The film we received this afternoon shook me and my family. Along with the hope it gives, it also shows how difficult Edan’s and the other hostages’ conditions are. And how they are shouting and pleading for us to save them. Now.”

Yael said her son “speaks for all the living hostages who cannot make their voices heard. And this voice must echo, and shake up everybody.”

“My beloved Edan,” she said, addressing him directly, “I want to tell you that after your plea, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called me an hour ago, gave me strength, and promised me that now, after there is an arrangement in Lebanon, the conditions are ripe to free you all and bring you all back home.”

Many in the audience jeered at the premier’s name but were motioned to stop.

She added: “Edan, that is also the will of the people. The people are with you and understand that [the return of you all] is total victory.”

Also speaking at the rally, prominent anti-government activist Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan Zangauker has been held in Gaza for over a year, said that it is “impossible to hold back the tears” after watching the video of Edan Alexander, as he “begs to return home.”

“A government that does not put a new initiative on the table for a deal and an end to the war to bring back Edan and the other hostages is a government that betrays the hostages and their families, and sacrifices them to their deaths in captivity,” Zangauker said.

“This week, the prime minister signed a deal for an end to the war in Lebanon. How can it be that Netanyahu signs a deal for the north but prevents a deal for the end of the war in the south?”

“In Lebanon, Hezbollah wasn’t defeated, and Netanyahu ran to make the deal. In Gaza, Hamas is defeated and Netanyahu refuses a deal” Zangauker continued. “The only way to return all the hostages is through stopping the war in Gaza as part of a one-time deal, but Netanyahu, [far-right ministers Itamar] Ben Gvir and [Bezalel] Smotrich are rushing to pave roads and build settlements on top of the hostages who are rotting in the tunnels.”

Yehuda Cohen, the father of hostage Nimrod Cohen, appealed to US President-elect Donald Trump to use his influence over Netanyahu and push him to agree to a hostage-ceasefire deal for the release of their loved ones.

“According to intelligence estimates, around half of the hostages are alive, and they cannot wait until you enter office in January,” he said. “My son Nimrod Cohen and all the hostages are crying out to us from the tunnels. They will not survive the winter. We must save them now.”

“You are probably the person with the greatest influence over Netanyahu,” he added. “You have the power to save lives.”

A block away, hundreds of anti-government activists protested in front of the Begin Street entrance to the IDF Headquarters.

At the entrance to the rally, a group urging “nonviolent civilian rebellion” held an informational session about disobedience tactics and advice on what to do in case of arrest.

One seasoned activist, surrounded by around two dozen neophytes, advised against relying on their right to remain silent if detained: “If you use your right to remain silent, your condition in court ends up being worse,” he said.

The “civil rebellion” group then marched to Dizengoff Square in central Tel Aviv, alongside several prominent anti-government activists, including Labor MKs Gilad Kariv, Efrat Rayten and Naama Lazimi, Democrats chairman Yair Golan, and Noam Dan, cousin of hostage Ofer Kalderon.

Other protests and rallies were held in cities across the country, with the notable exception of Caesarea, near the private home of Netanyahu, where some of the most intense protests have been held over the past 14 months. Organizers halted the Caesarea protests last week after it became clear that Netanyahu no longer spends time in the coastal city.

It is believed that 97 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.

Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 37 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.

Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.