Rallies for, against hostage deal held across Israel hours before it takes effect

In Tel Aviv, Bibas family relatives mark Kfir’s 2nd birthday as they hold out hope for his release; police officer lightly injured by rioters protesting against deal in Jerusalem

Demonstrators protest for the release of the hostages held in the Gaza Strip outside the IDF military headquarters in Tel Aviv, January 18, 2025. (Erik Marmor/Flash90)
Demonstrators protest for the release of the hostages held in the Gaza Strip outside the IDF military headquarters in Tel Aviv, January 18, 2025. (Erik Marmor/Flash90)

Thousands of people demonstrated across Israel on Saturday night, urging the government to commit fully to the hostage release-ceasefire deal with Hamas, some 12 hours before it was set to begin.

At the same time, hundreds gathered to condemn the deal inked with the Gazan terror group, which they warned was a threat to Israel’s security and amounted to surrender after more than 15 months of war.

Instead of the phased deal that will begin on Sunday, protesters in Jerusalem demanded a comprehensive agreement that would free all the captives at once, rather than in stages, to avert the risk that some of the 98 hostages could be left behind over the course of the multi-stage deal.

The deal, signed Friday by Israeli and Hamas negotiators in Qatar and approved by the government in the early hours of Saturday, is to be implemented in three stages. During the first 42-day phase, Hamas will release 33 Israeli hostages — alive and dead — while Israel is to release up to 1,904 Palestinian security prisoners and detainees in return.

Almost all of those set to be released during the first phase of the deal were abducted during the October 7, 2023, terror assault in southern Israel, although two of those on the list — Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed — have been held in Gaza since 2014 and 2015, respectively.

The deal comes more than a year after the first and only weeklong truce and hostage release agreement reached by Israel and Hamas, in November 2023. Since then, amid on-again-off-again negotiations that until now had proved futile, protests have been held across the country every Saturday night to demand another deal.

In Tel Aviv, the epicenter of the protest movement, two simultaneous protests are held each week, one of which, held outside the Begin Road entrance to the IDF headquarters, is an explicitly anti-government demonstration.

Demonstrators protest for the release of the hostages held in the Gaza Strip outside the IDF military headquarters in Tel Aviv, January 18, 2025. (Erik Marmor/Flash90)

As the protest began on Saturday evening, attendees marched from Kaplan Street to the nearby Begin Road in a massive human column, chanting, “The government is criminal!” as they went.

They marched amid a sea of Israeli flags, along with a sprinkling of US flags, LGBTQ Pride flags, and sheer yellow flags to represent solidarity with the hostages.

“We are all hostages of the government of blood!” they chanted as they stood outside the IDF headquarters. An activist standing overhead on a pedestrian bridge read the names of the 98 hostages still in captivity in Gaza. after each name, protesters responded with a cry of “Now!”

Family members of the hostages then stood to speak.

Taking the podium, Yifat Calderon, the cousin of hostage Ofer Calderon, read out the names of the eight government ministers who voted against the deal on Friday night. At each name, the crowd erupted into jeers.

By contrast, when Yifat Calderon, cousin of hostage Ofer Calderon, read out the names of ministers who voted against the deal Friday night, the crowd erupted in boos at each name.

Thousands take to the streets in Tel Aviv waving Israeli flags and holding signs in support of a hostage deal during an anti-government protest on Tel Aviv’s Begin Street, January 18, 2025. (Yoav Loeff/Pro-Democracy Protest Group)

Talia Dancyg, granddaughter of slain hostage Alex Dancyg whose body was retrieved in August, said her grandfather will only be able to rest in peace when all the hostages return.

“All 98 of them will come home and get the biggest hug a human has ever received,” she said.

“I fought to bring you back, and you didn’t return in time,” she said of her grandfather, whose autopsy indicated he was shot by his captors after Israel bombed the area where he was held. “You came back in a black bag. The funeral was attended by hostage families who used to be just plain families.”

She said that when she hears opponents of the hostage deal urge for Israel to use “only military pressure and war” to rescue the hostages, she thinks to herself, “military pressure and war will kill the hostages.”

“We won’t let them keep on thwarting [the deal]” she said of the government. “We won’t let them keep on selling us lies.”

‘Life trumps everything’

A block away from the explicitly anti-government rally, at the so-called Hostages Square, thousands of people participated in the weekly Hostages and Missing Families Forum rally, which defines itself as apolitical.

There, Amit Soussana, who was released from Hamas captivity on November 30, 2023, recalled that she “didn’t think for a moment that the deal didn’t include everyone and that the fighting could resume,” when she herself was freed.

She recalled that in the lead-up to her own release during the weeklong truce last year, she watched the release of her fellow hostages on television in Gaza.

“I didn’t know when I would get out, and still I was so happy for every hostage who was released,” she said.

Released hostage Amit Soussana speaks during a rally calling for the release of the hostages held in Gaza, in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, January 18, 2025. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

“When I was released, I left behind people I love,” she said. “We can’t do that to them again. They won’t survive it.”

“Today we are finally beginning to see the light, but true victory, and a recovery for all of us, can start only once the last of the hostages comes back home,” she added.

The agreement that comes into effect Sunday will see 33 hostages released during the first “humanitarian” phase of the agreement. The remaining 65 hostages are expected to then be released over the next phases.

“The agreement has to include everyone,” said Soussana. “We must formulate the second and third phases now and make sure nobody is left behind.”

Soussana, who has spoken publicly about the sexual assault she endured in captivity, told the audience that the three women expected to be released on Sunday “must not return to a divided society.”

“The return will be hard, but I know life trumps everything,” she said.

Ofri Bibas Levi, the sister of hostage Yarden Bibas, spoke next and marked the second birthday of her nephew Kfir, who was abducted into Gaza along with his mother Shiri and brother Ariel, then four years old, when he was just nine months of age. He is the youngest hostage in Gaza.

“I try to draw comfort from the thought that this year, Kfir’s birthday is the date when the agreement will finally be ratified,” she said. “This day will become a symbol of hope, a new beginning, for the rehabilitation and the recovery of an entire nation.”

She noted that the family has for the past year been searching for the purple toy elephant that Kfir can be seen clutching in a now iconic photo of him that has been emblazoned on posters and picket signs up and down the country.

Ofri Bibas Levy, sister of hostage Yarden Bibas, marks her captive nephew Kfir’s second birthday at a rally in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, on January 18, 2025. Kfir’s purple elephant toy sits on the podium beside her. (Paulina Patimer/Pro-Democracy Protest Movement)

“To us, the elephant symbolizes Kfir, the life that was, normalcy, the childhood that was stolen,” she said. “This week — with painful timing — the elephant has finally been found.”

The Bibas family is due to be released during the first phase of the deal. Hamas claimed in November 2023, that Shiri, Kfir and Ariel were killed in an Israeli strike, but Israel has not made a definitive assessment of their status. The terror group has lied about the fate of hostages in the past.

While the deal dictates that Israel must receive a list of the status of all the hostages within the first week of it coming into effect, it does not currently know which of them are dead or alive.

Earlier on Saturday, in a weekly press briefing delivered by the hostage families ahead of the protests, Danny Elgarat, brother of captive Itzik Elgarat, urged US-President-elect Donadly Trump to demand Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly declare his intent to fully implement the multiphase hostage-ceasefire deal.

“We are asking you to stand on guard. Ensure the deal is implemented in full and doesn’t come apart. Demand Netanyahu declares that the war is over,” he said.

Protesters at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv carry a banner of Kfir Bibas, who was taken hostage by Hamas at just nine months of age, and who turned two in captivity on Saturday, January 18, 2025. (Yair Palti/Pro-Democracy Protest Movement)

Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan was abducted by Hamas from his Kibbutz Nir Oz home, accused “the extremists in the government” of working to prevent the agreement’s full implementation.

She further charged that Netanyahu was making promises to Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich that “contradict the commitment to end the war and endanger the agreement.”

Smotrich, who voted against the deal, said earlier on Saturday that the prime minister had agreed to his demands for Israel to return to fighting Hamas after the first phase of the deal, stage a ” gradual takeover of the entire Gaza Strip” and cut off access to humanitarian aid.

Unlike the members of Otzma Yehudit, the far-right party led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, which also opposes the deal, Smotrich and his Religious Zionism party have not left the government or coalition, despite their criticism.

Opposing causes on the streets of Jerusalem

Alongside the demonstrations in Tel Aviv, a few thousand people came together in Jerusalem to demonstrate in support of the deal.

“We won’t stop until they all return,” chanted the demonstrators as they marched from Zion Square in Jerusalem’s city center to the Prime Minister’s Residence.

During the protest, Sharon Sharabi, whose brother Eli Sharabi is slated to be freed from Hamas captivity during the first phase of the deal, spoke to a few thousand rally-goers outside the prime minister’s Azza Street home.

“You are not alone, we are with you!” chanted the crowd.

Demonstrators join a march in Jerusalem calling for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip, January 18, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Sharabi’s two brothers Yossi and Eli were abducted by Hamas on October 7. While Eli is believed to be alive in Gaza, his older brother Yossi was declared dead in captivity in mid-January last year.

Defending the deal from its detractors, Sharon insisted that “when it comes to saving human life, there is no compromise.”

“The State of Israel is paying heavy prices in order to return the hostages home, yes, we can’t beautify it,” he said. “But the price of the hostages remaining in Hamas captivity is the highest price that the state of Israel could pay in all its history.”

Shlomo Alfasa Goren, whose sister-in-law Maya Goren was murdered by Hamas on October 7 and taken into Gaza before being recovered by the IDF in July, urged protesters not to ease their pressure on the government until all hostages are released from Hamas captivity.

“We will continue to anxiously wait, and we won’t waver on every single hostage who is currently left behind. The government of Israel insists on total victory, refused to stop the fighting, and this is the deal that finally succeeded,” he said.

Jerusalem was also host on Saturday night to a demonstration against the deal, which drew a crowd of roughly 1,000 attendees, who believe that the deal will threaten Israel’s security without even guaranteeing the release of all the hostages.

Blocking the freeway, young rioters threw stones, confronted drivers, and threw a burning bucket off a bridge, and, according to Ynet, insisted that “Sinwar was also freed in a deal!”

Right-wing protesters clash with police during a protest against the hostage deal with Hamas, in Jerusalem, January 18, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

The protesters were referring to former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the October 7 mastermind who was released from an Israeli prison, along with more than 1,000 other Palestinian security prisoners, during a 2011 deal for the release of captive IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.

Sinwar was killed by Israeli troops in Gaza last year, and his brother Mohammad Sinwar is believed to have taken his place leading the terror group from inside Gaza in his stead.

Police intervened to disperse the protesters as they turned violent, and one police officer was lightly injured in a clash with the rioters.

Meanwhile, activists near the entrance to the city expressed their opposition to ending the war against Hamas, and demanded one comprehensive deal that would release all of the captives at once rather than a staggered deal spread out over months.

Demonstrators block a road in Jerusalem during a protest against the hostage deal with Hamas, January 18, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

The Gvura Forum, a hawkish group of bereaved families that oppose the deal, participated in the demonstration.

“We all remember when we received that knock on the door, and our world was destroyed,” said the group’s chairman, Yehoshua Shani, whose son Uri Mordechai Shani was killed in action against Hamas-led terrorists on October 7.

“We decided to establish the Gvura Forum, because our children went out to defeat the enemy, and all of us, all members of the forum, felt the responsibility to continue the fight,” he said, in remarks quoted by Ynet.

Shani spoke of the thousand or so Palestinian security prisoners expected to be released in the first phase of the deal.

“We can’t point specifically to the people who will pay the price, but we know from not-very-distant history — the price of a deal like this is already written,” he said.

“But we aren’t broken. [We will continue] until total victory and the return of all the hostages,” he said.

‘Written in blood’

Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu — who, as part of National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party, will resign from the government on Sunday in opposition to the deal, addressed demonstrators at the Gvura Forum’s headquarters.

“‘This deal is a disgrace.’ ‘It is written in blood.’ ‘It is a shocking deal.’ These words were said by ministers who support the deal — not me,” Eliyahu said. “There are ministers who are supposed to know that this deal is a reward for terrorism, who voted for it.”

“This is shameful. We see the names of the terrorists who laugh at judges [when they’re given a] ‘life sentence.’ With this deal, there won’t be one terrorist left in prison,” he alleged. “And we, a right-wing government, fully signed on to it? How are we capable of such a thing?”

Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu speaks at the Gvura Forum headquarters during a protest against the hostage deal with Hamas, in Jerusalem, January 18, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

The ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip is scheduled to come into effect on Sunday at 8:30 a.m. local time, Qatar and the IDF said Saturday. Hours later, the first three Israeli hostages and 95 Palestinian prisoners will be released under the agreement.

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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