‘See the tears in our eyes’: Ex-captive Wenkert urges cabinet to invite him to meeting
At weekly rallies, freed hostages demand return to deal; Liri Albag ahead of Passover, the festival of freedom: ‘What kind of freedom is it when 59 people are still in Hamas hell?’
Thousands of people took to the streets across Israel once again on Saturday evening, taking part in weekly demonstrations demanding the return of the remaining 59 hostages held in Gaza, and protesting against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
This week’s rallies come as family members of the hostages have repeatedly expressed concern for the fate of their loved ones since Israel resumed hostilities in Gaza last month, ending a ceasefire and hostage release deal that Israel reached with Hamas in January, citing the Palestinian terror group’s refusal to extend its first phase.
In Tel Aviv, several former hostages who were released as part of the recent ceasefire deal spoke to the crowds, with Liri Albag, Omer Wenkert and Gadi Mozes all criticizing the renewed fighting and voicing fear that it endangers the lives of the remaining hostages.
The protests began hours after Hamas released a propaganda video of hostages Maxim Herkin and Bar Kuperstein, which served as the first sign of life of either captive since they were kidnapped almost 550 days ago during the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led onslaught that started the war.
The families of the two hostages asked Israeli media not to publish the Hamas video, which was one of dozens of hostage propaganda videos that the terror group has released throughout the war in Gaza, in what Israel says is deplorable psychological warfare.
At the rally at Hostages Square, Liri Albag, a surveillance soldier abducted from the Nahal Oz base during the Hamas onslaught and released during the now-defunct ceasefire, told the crowd that “every return to fighting endangers the hostages.”
“Whenever the Air Force strikes, they’re the first to pay the price,” she said.
After the collapse of the first truce-hostage deal in November 2023, “I also collapsed,” said Albag. “I remember that moment — one moment where everything that kept us going shattered.”
“This week is Passover — the festival of freedom. But what kind of freedom is it when 59 people are still in Hamas hell?” Albag lamented. “I remember Passover there — a sad holiday. We were depressed. We were enslaved.”
Gadi Mozes, an 80-year-old farmer abducted by Palestinian Islamic Jihad from Kibbutz Nir Oz and freed in January, demanded that the government “end the war, withdraw the military from the Strip, and carry out the second stage of the deal that Israel signed” but refused to negotiate during the 42-day first phase that expired on March 2.
“We have no time. The earth is burning under our feet,” said Mozes. “The assumption that killing people will make Hamas understand that they need to release hostages is fundamentally wrong. They aren’t interested in human life or property. They hold a bargaining chip and want to get the most out of it.”
“The war drums are echoing in my ears again,” he added. “I was there and heard those voices from the other side of the border.”
“Our brothers in captivity lose all hope when the sounds of rockets can be heard from every direction,” Mozes said, referring to the 24 hostages still thought to be alive, who are all young men. “Those rockets have killed and can kill our defenseless brothers.”
Omer Wenkert, who was released from Hamas captivity in February as part of the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal, also spoke at Hostages Square, and called on the government to invite him to a cabinet meeting, “and look at my testimony in the eyes.”
“In captivity, I was held in a tunnel under extreme conditions. Next to me was a pit,” that served as a toilet, he said. “For 505 days, I was starved, humiliated, beaten. Out of these, I was held alone for 197 days and almost lost my mind.”
“I’m not really here. Only half of me is standing here,” continued Wenkert. “Part of us, part of all of us, is still captive in Gaza.”
“Prime Minister Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu, it’s on you to get them back,” he said. “I turn to you, leaders of the country, and reiterate: don’t look away. Look at us. See the tears in our eyes.”
He paid tribute to the soldiers who have been killed in the war; to the 28 young people, including his good friend Kim Damati, who were killed in the bomb shelter they fled to from the Reim-area Nova music festival during the Hamas onslaught of October 7; and to his friends Evyatar David and Guy Gilboa Dalal, who were also snatched from the rave and are still in captivity.
Speaking a week before the freedom-themed holiday of Passover, Wenkert said: “The word ‘freedom’ sounds big, sublime, but it’s simple — being with family; waking up in the morning with a peaceful heart. Knowing you’re free to dream, hug, love, laugh, cry without fear.”
Before the main anti-government rally in Tel Aviv, some 1,000 people gathered for a demonstration at Habima Square, where Yesh Atid lawmaker Yoav Segalovitz claimed that Netanyahu was lying about Qatar amid the probe into the allegedly illicit ties between the premier’s top aides and the Hamas-backing Gulf emirate.
Quoting a video statement Netanyahu put out this week arguing that Qatar isn’t an enemy state, Segalovitz said that “all of a sudden, Qatar has become a ‘complex country.’ A country that deals with terrorism, where Hamas people reside permanently, is suddenly a ‘complex country.'”
Netanyahu has a “mark of Cain mark on his forehead” for failing to prevent the October 7 attack, he said, for “whitewashing” far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, and for introducing “conspiratorial terms such as ‘deep state’ into public discourse.”
“I’m proud to have been part of the deep state,” said Segalovitz, a former commander of the police’s Lahav 433 major crimes unit, which is investigating the so-called Qatargate affair.
Segalovitz asserted that Netanyahu, who was on a state visit to Budapest over the weekend, wants to make Israel like Hungary, where “the justice system has been suppressed, the constitution changed, the press isn’t free, academia is trampled.”
“Netanyahu gets his picture taken by the Danube,” he said, referring to a photo of the premier at a Holocaust memorial in Budapest over the past week. “He has yet to come to Nir Oz,” Segalovitz adds, referring to the southern kibbutz that was ravaged in the October 2023 attack.
The demonstration also featured a speech from former foreign minister Tzipi Livni, who read a litany of grievances against Netanyahu, including “violent rampages of killing and destruction by Jews against Arabs in Judea and Samaria,” a rare reference to settler violence in the West Bank at the Habima demonstration.
At the anti-government rally near the IDF headquarters on Begin Road in Tel Aviv, Merav Svirsky, sister of slain hostage Itay Svirsky, told thousands of protesters that it’s “insane and insufferable, and painful to the spirit and soul and body, that I paid the dearest price because of this government of destruction and the prime minister.”
“He’ll do anything to preserve his rule. And if that’s not enough, today we also know that ‘diplomatic source'” — a pseudonym Netanyahu sometimes uses in press statements from his office — “is sometimes Qatari public relations posing as a diplomatic source,” added Svirsky, alluding to recent revelations from the criminal investigation of alleged criminal ties between Hamas-backer Qatar and top aides to Netanyahu.
“Not another hostage should pay with their life for the criminal conduct of the government and its head,” she said. “Enough of all this unnecessary death. Instead of destructive revenge, we must go back to sanctifying life.”
Maayan Sherman, whose soldier son Ron Sherman was killed in an Israeli airstrike while in Hamas captivity, said that “along with Ron, 40 hostages have been murdered or killed because of this abandonment, while the government of Israel is busy with the insanity of the judicial overhaul.”
“Despite all the pain, I refuse to give up hope,” she said. “We’re here to remind everyone what responsibility is, what guilt is, what compassion is and what moral duty is.”
Saturday’s protests came as fears for the fate of the hostages have been heightened, as Hamas said in a statement Friday that it would not move living hostages out of areas in Gaza that the military has ordered to be evacuated in recent days, saying the Israeli government would be at fault if captives were killed.
The IDF has issued evacuation orders for the entire Rafah area, Gaza City’s Shejaiya neighborhood, and other areas in the Strip’s north. The statement also said that Hamas was keeping the hostages “under strict security measures, which are extremely dangerous to their lives.”
Hamas has previously said it would execute hostages if Israeli troops are seen approaching areas where they are being held. In August, Hamas murdered six hostages in Rafah as Israeli forces were operating nearby.
The rallies also came after a “senior Israeli official” told reporters on Friday that Israel would not agree to end the war in Gaza in exchange for the hostages because Hamas is demanding guarantees that would bar Israel from resuming operations in the Strip again.
The Times of Israel Community.