Protesters demand elections as hostage families seethe: ‘You could have saved them’
Weekly Hostages Square rally highlights 6 captives whose bodies were recovered from Gaza, as Netanyahu is accused of thwarting talks in Egypt; 3 protesters said detained in Jerusalem
Thousands of Israelis took to the streets across the country Saturday to demand new elections as hostages’ families held their weekly rally at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, where they excoriated the government for failing to save six captives whose bodies were retrieved from Gaza earlier this week.
A group representing people detained in anti-government demonstrations said three protesters were arrested in Jerusalem.
Titled “You Could Have Saved Them,” this week’s Hostages Square rally featured Ayala Metzger, daughter-in-law of Yoram Metzger, one of the six whose bodies were recovered overnight Monday-Tuesday, and Eyal Mor, whose uncle Avraham Munder’s body was another one of those retrieved.
Also featured were Aviva Siegel, whom Hamas released in November and whose husband Keith remains in captivity; Michael Levy, brother of hostage Or Levy; and Gil Dickmann, cousin of hostage Carmel Gat.
The speakers called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to sign a hostage and ceasefire deal.
“If Netanyahu torpedoes a deal, he will be granting the wishes of Itamar Ben Gvir and Yahya Sinwar,” said Dickmann, referring to the far-right national security minister and Hamas’s Gaza-based leader, respectively.
“Mr. prime minister, go to Cairo yourself, don’t send anybody. Close a deal now,” said Opposition Leader Yair Lapid at the weekly anti-government rally on Tel Aviv’s Kaplan Street.
A Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo on Saturday for talks with mediators Egypt, Qatar and the US. Israel’s delegation also held talks in Cairo on Thursday and Friday.
However, a Palestinian source was cited by the Lebanese pro-Hezbollah Al Mayadeen news outlet as saying late Saturday night that the talks in Cairo between negotiators and Hamas did not lead to “any clear progress.”
The report claimed that Hamas told mediators that it is committed to the plan it outlined on July 2, and “rejects any presence of IDF forces in the Philadelphi Corridor.”
Netanyahu’s insistence on Israel remaining in the Philadelphi Corridor, which separates Gaza from Egypt, in order to prevent arms smuggling into Gaza, has reportedly hindered the talks, after the demand was absent from a previous Israeli proposal.
“This isn’t the Philadelphi Corridor, it’s the Philadelphi spin,” said Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker and a leading anti-government figure among the hostage families. The premier is “systematically thwarting the deal” with his eleventh-hour demands, she claimed.
Zangauker was speaking outside the military headquarters in Tel Aviv, where hostage families openly critical of the government hold a weekly press conference ahead of the nearby Kaplan Street demonstration.
Other anti-government rallies were held in Haifa, Ness Ziona and outside Netanyahu’s private home in Caesarea, among others. A left-wing, binational rally was also held earlier in the day in the central Arab town of Taibe.
Speaking at the Jerusalem rally, Ophir Metzger, granddaughter of slain hostage Yoram Metzger, paraphrased Martin Niemoller’s famous poem “First they came,” about inaction in the face of Nazi persecution.
“First they abandoned the Gaza border communities, and I didn’t speak out because I didn’t live on the Gaza border; then they abandoned the northern communities, and I didn’t speak out because I didn’t live in the north,” said Metzger, referring to the much-battered, largely displaced communities in Israel’s north and south.
She continued: “Then they abandoned the hostages and their families, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a hostage and nobody from my family was kidnapped; then they abandoned me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.”
Earlier Saturday, the Peace Partnership — a coalition of leftist groups that coalesced after October 7 — and Hadash, a Jewish-Arab communist Knesset party, held a protest against the war in Gaza, preceded by a conference featuring “testimonies on the war and the unspoken horrors, with people and groups that were there.”
Protesters held signs calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
טייבה: הסכמים מצילים חיים. הפסקת אש עכשיו! ???????? pic.twitter.com/zetcEznsEZ
— עומדים ביחד نقف معًا Standing Together???? (@omdimbeyachad) August 24, 2024
The October 7 attack saw thousands of Hamas-led terrorists storm southern Israel to kill nearly 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza.
It is believed that 105 of the hostages abducted on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Seven hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 30 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.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says more than 40,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far. The toll, which cannot be verified, does not distinguish between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 17,000 combatants in battle and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
