Protesters demand Gaza negotiators seal deal after bodies of hostage father, son found

Activists accuse government of avoiding agreement after grim discovery of Youssef and Hamza Ziyadne; foreign envoys join ceasefire calls; protest clown briefly held in Jerusalem

Demonstrators protest against the Israeli government and for the release of Israelis held hostage in the Gaza Strip  in Tel Aviv, January 11, 2025. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)
Demonstrators protest against the Israeli government and for the release of Israelis held hostage in the Gaza Strip in Tel Aviv, January 11, 2025. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

Israelis rallied in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on Saturday night for a deal to release hostages held in Gaza, urging the government to push talks past the nearing finish line days after the army recovered the bodies of a father and son it said were taken alive on October 7, 2023, and killed while in captivity.

One person in Tel Aviv was detained while protesting the government, police said, and in Jerusalem the brief detention of a clown who has become a central figure in anti-government demonstrations sparked anger by crowds protesting outside the home of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Youssef and Hamza Ziyadne “survived the depths of hell and were murdered because you didn’t make the right decision in time,” Shiri Albag said during a weekly rally at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, addressing Netanyahu and and Defense Minister Israel Katz.

Her appearance came a week after Hamas published a video of her daughter Liri Albag, a 19-year-old soldier who was among the 251 people abducted during the October 7 massacre.

Albag said the clip was a “living testament to [Netanyahu’s and Katz’s] ongoing failure.”

“Look at her eyes,” she said. “Eyes we know so well. Eyes that scream from inside: ‘Get me out of hell. Don’t forget me.'”

Shira Albag, mother of captive soldier Liri Albag, speaks during a rally calling for the release of Israelis held hostage by Hamas terrorists in Gaza, at Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, January 11, 2025. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

In a sign that talks were advancing Saturday evening, Netanyahu’s office announced that he had decided to send a high-level delegation to Qatar to join efforts to seal a hostage-ceasefire deal with the Hamas terror group.

The team departing Saturday night includes Mossad chief David Barnea, Shin Bet director Ronen Bar, IDF hostage point man Maj. Gen. (res.) Nitzan Alon, and Netanyahu’s political adviser Ophir Falk.

The decision was made after Netanyahu held a situation assessment on the ongoing hostage talks with Katz, Israeli security chiefs, and officials from US President Joe Biden’s outgoing administration and from US President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration.

Netanyahu met with Trump’s incoming US Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff in Jerusalem earlier in the day, and Witkoff was set to return to Qatar to participate in the negotiations along with the senior Israeli delegation, a source familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel.

Demonstrators protest against the Israeli government and for the release of Israelis held hostage in the Gaza Strip in Tel Aviv, January 11, 2025. (Itai Ron/Flash90)

Trump has repeatedly threatened of “hell to pay” if a deal is not inked by the time he enters office on January 20, and his tough talk has been credited with helping nudge negotiations ahead.

Speaking to the crowd in English, outgoing US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew said the US was pushing for the talks to succeed, noting that US citizens were among those held hostage.

“The United States demands the release of seven of our hostages, four of whom we know to be dead — now!” Lew declared, saying the last word in Hebrew to applause.

“There could a ceasefire tomorrow, and an end to the suffering of Gazans, if Hamas releases the hostages,” added Lew.

US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew speaks at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, January 11, 2025 (Paulina Patimer / Hostages and Missing Families Forum)

Other international envoys also spoke, with some using the platform to speak out on behalf of Gazans suffering through a humanitarian crisis due to the war sparked by Hamas’s attack, in which some 1,200 people were killed.

“I know this is not a popular thing to say, but these tragedies are linked,” German Ambassador Steffen Seibert said, calling in Hebrew for an end to the “indescribable suffering of hundreds of thousands of Gazans,” as well as the release of the hostages.

British Ambassador Simon Walters also spoke in Hebrew, drawing on his childhood in war-torn northern Ireland as an example of the sacrifices needed to make peace.

“Every step toward peace was very painful, but that is the only way,” he said. “Hamas is fully responsible for these crimes, but practically, we know the only way to bring the hostages home is through negotiations.”

Demonstrators protest against the Israeli government and for the release of Israelis held hostage in the Gaza Strip in Tel Aviv, January 11, 2025. (Itai Ron/Flash90)

At a press conference ahead of the rally, relatives of hostages angrily accused the government of being unwilling to make the needed sacrifices for a deal. They spoke days after some 1,000 parents of soldiers fighting in Gaza sent a letter to Netanyahu accusing him of using their children as “cannon fodder.”

“Instead of the hostages returning alive, we are receiving the captives in body bags. Only in Israel is total failure sold as ‘a heroic operation,'” said Ayala Metzger the daughter-in-law of slain hostage Yoram Metzger. “We don’t want you to send more soldiers who lose their lives while extracting bodies. We don’t want more soldiers to fall in a pointless war.”

At a nearby anti-government protest in Tel Aviv demonstrators railed against newly proposed changes to the judiciary, which legal scholar Barak Medina told the crowd would “destroy the judiciary as an independent branch of government.”

Demonstrators protest against the Israeli government and for the release of Israelis held hostage in the Gaza Strip in Tel Aviv, January 11, 2025. (Itai Ron/Flash90)

The reforms unveiled by Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar Thursday appeared to represent a softened version of an overhaul previously pushed by the government which sparked massive nationwide protests in 2023. Critics said the new proposal, which gives opposition politicians a greater voice on choosing judges, still preserves moves that will increase political control over the judicial system while curbing its ability to act as a check on the government or Knesset.

Medina, a former Hebrew University rector now representing 112 hostage relatives in a petition to the High Court accusing the government of denying the captives’ basic rights by failing to secure their release, said politicians should focus on freeing the hostages and ending the war rather than overhauling the judiciary.

Limor Livnat, a stalwart-turned-critic of Netanyahu’s Likud party, also slammed the Sa’ar and Levin agreement.

Demonstrators protest against the Israeli government and for the release of Israelis held hostage in the Gaza Strip in Tel Aviv, January 11, 2025. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

“How wonderful,” she said acidly. “The coalition is able to agree with itself. They may yet agree to cancel the elections.”

Demonstrators were joined by some families of hostages at an ensuing protest in front of IDF headquarters.

Police said most demonstrators dispersed peacefully, but some remained to light a fire, fighting with officers.

“Officers were caught in clashes with protesters, who blocked the way and prevented the fire from being extinguished, shoved and refused to clear out,” police said in a statement. “Subsequently, officers were forced to use force to put out the bonfire.”

Authorities said one person as arrested for disturbing public order.

At Jerusalem’s Paris Square, officers detained clown Hashoteret Az-Oolay, a mainstay of the city’s protest scene, outside the prime minister’s residence.

Police arrest a clown protester at a hostage families protest in Jerusalem on January 11, 2025. (Jess Flom)

Decked out in trademark clown makeup and a mock police uniform, Az-Oolay is a frequent face at the hostage protests, where she hands out heart-shaped stickers to activists, police and bystanders.

Her arrest incensed nearby demonstrators and the news quickly made its way to the rally’s main stage, where the emcee lauded Az-Oolay as the “most well-known figure of Jerusalem’s protests.”

“She is a figure of love, giving, acceptance and helping others — and it’s her that the police choose to arrest,” the speaker said to the crowd, prompting chants of “shame” from the crowd toward law enforcement.

After around half an hour, the police returned her to Paris Square, the location of the rally.

Policewoman Az-Oolay at a demonstration protesting the eviction of Palestinian families from the disputed Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in Jerusalem, December 2021. (Gilad Bashan)

It is believed that 94 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 40 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.

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