‘Stop sabotaging’: Hostage families slam Netanyahu in rallies in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem

Thousands of people rallied outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem on Saturday night to call for a hostage deal, while at the same time, anti-government protesters marched to the Likud headquarters in Tel Aviv to demand early elections.

The massive rally in Jerusalem marked the end of a four-day march led by hostage families, which began in Tel Aviv and ended in the capital on Saturday afternoon.

It took place at the same time as dozens of other demonstrations across the country, including one outside Netanyahu’s private residence in Caesarea, and others in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Beersheba and Herzliya.

Speaking to the crowd outside Netanyahu’s office, Einav Zangauker, mother of 24-year-old hostage Matan Zangauker, accused the premier of “time after time, trying to separate me from Matan.”

The march was organized amid the ramped-up hostage deal talks in Doha and Cairo that took place throughout much of last week, as family members of captives held by Hamas in Gaza have accused Netanyahu of trying to sabotage any progress made during the indirect negotiations by issuing hardened demands.

“We will not let him torpedo the deal — we will not allow it,” Zangauker declared. “It seems I’m not the only crazy person who believes that we deserve to have our families back home now.”

Thanking the crowd for their support for the families of the hostages, Zangauker declared them to be her source of hope.

She told the crowd that she was in contact with members of Israel’s negotiating team, and said she knows that “we are close” to reaching a deal.

“We deserve better leadership that takes responsibility,” she added. “The hostages, too, deserve to hug their mothers and fathers.”

נטלי צנגאוקר, אחותו של מתן החטוף בעזה מרססת על גשר המיתרים בירושלים: "די לטרפד את העסקה".

אלפים ליוו את בני משפחות החטופים במסע של 4 ימים על כביש 1 מתל אביב לירושליםhttps://t.co/zzeBkSoIeL | @inbartvizer pic.twitter.com/lzfdNLlHhp

— החדשות – N12 (@N12News) July 13, 2024

Earlier on Saturday, upon the group’s arrival to Jerusalem, Zangauker’s daughter Natalie — Matan’s sister — was seen hanging over the side of the Chords Bridge, graffiti paint in hand, emblazoning the words “stop sabotaging” onto the side of the structure, in an apparent message to Netanyahu.

After the speeches ended at the Jerusalem rally on Saturday evening, hundreds of protesters stayed and blocked a major intersection near Netanyahu’s office. “We won’t abandon them!” the group chanted to the beat of drums while sitting on the pavement.

Elad Or, the brother of Hamas hostage Dror Or, gave an off-the-cuff speech to the protesters who remained at the scene after the official rally ended.

“The assassination in Gaza distances the deal,” he said, referring to the IDF’s recent attempt to target Muhammad Deif, the commander of Hamas’s military wing, in an airstrike in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday morning. As of early Sunday, it was unconfirmed whether Deif had been killed in the strike.

“Is this the time — when the government has an opportunity [to return the hostages] — to assassinate high-ranking terrorists? Is this the time? This distances the deal,” Or exclaimed.

Police were present on the sidelines, along with mounted officers and a water cannon, although they didn’t intervene and the protest eventually dispersed as people left for the night.

One person was arrested after trying to bypass a crowd control barrier.

In addition to criticizing Netanyahu’s added demands, which he has said are nonnegotiable, Einav Zangauker similarly cast doubt on the viability of a truce and hostage release deal in light of the strike on Deif.

“We’re all for settling the score with the Hamas murders, but not at the cost of our loved ones’ lives and our chances to get them home,” she told Channel 12 following the strike.

“If Muhammad Deif was eliminated with a hostage deal on the table, and Netanyahu doesn’t get up now and say he’s willing to take the deal, even at the price of ending the war, that means he’s given up on my Matan and on the rest of the hostages.”

Illustrating her point, Matan’s partner Ilana Gritzewsky, who was herself released from captivity on November 3 during a weeklong truce, said that as someone who was taken hostage, she is “the first to say that senior Hamas officials should be eliminated.”

“But I know the hostages are above everything else,” she said. “Netanyahu — you got what you wanted. I’m asking you — say yes to the deal. Bring home Matan and all the rest of the hostages.”

At the same time as the demonstration got underway in Jerusalem, anti-government protesters gathered on Tel Aviv’s Kaplan Street, while protesters calling for a deal gathered at the nearby Hostages Square to hear from rescued hostage Andrey Kozlov.

Kozlov, who was rescued from Gaza last month after 246 days in captivity, thanked Netanyahu for rescuing him, and, invoking the legacy of the prime minister’s late brother Yoni Netanyahu, and asked him to facilitate the return of the remaining 120 captives.

“I may look fine on the outside, but the pain weighs on me more than anyone can see or imagine,” Kozlov said, describing the “living hell” he had endured in captivity.

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, thank you for bringing me back home. Now, as your brother did, please bring back the rest of the hostages,” he said, referencing Yoni Netanyahu, who was killed on July 4, 1976, while participating in the successful rescue of over 100 Israeli hostages in Entebbe, Uganda.

“There is nothing more important than getting a deal to bring back all the hostages,” he added.

He told the crowd that “every day in Gaza was living hell, every day felt like it would be the last one,” but that “watching all of you at Hostages Square was what gave me the strength to survive.”

Kozlov had previously said he saw images of the scenes from Hostages Square during the long months in Gaza, as his captors would show him footage “nearly every Saturday night.”

At the nearby anti-government rally, thousands passed by with a bus-sized banner that declared “Netanyahu is finishing the hostages.”

Gabriela Leimberg, who was freed from captivity in November along with her 17-year-old daughter Mia and the family dog Bella, took the stage at the Hostages and Missing Families Forum rally after Kozlov.

“Don’t anybody dare to kid themselves that there is any way other than a deal to get them back,” Leimberg said of the remaining hostages.

While Leimberg’s brother and brother-in-law, Fernando Marmam and Louis Har, were rescued by the IDF in an overnight operation in Rafah back in February, she said that additional rescue operations would not end in the release of the remaining hostages, dozens of whom are believed dead.

As the organized protests in Tel Aviv drew to a close, hundreds of people flooded the streets with impromptu, unauthorized demonstrations that blocked Dizengoff Street and Habima Junction, while police forces closely monitored the situation.

One group of protesters peeled off from the rest and began marching toward the Likud headquarters in Tel Aviv on King George Street.

It is believed that 116 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza — not all of them alive — after 105 civilians were released from Hamas captivity during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released prior to that. Seven hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 19 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military.

The IDF has confirmed the deaths of 42 of those still held by Hamas, citing new intelligence and findings obtained by troops operating in Gaza.

One more person is listed as missing since October 7, and their fate is still unknown.

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.