Thousands urge hostage deal; relative to negotiators: Don’t hesitate to challenge PM
Several rallies held in Tel Aviv, with weekly demonstrations also held around the country; abductee’s wife slams Smotrich: ‘You consider it a surrender to return 115 human beings?’
Weekly protests across the country Saturday evening drew thousands of protesters clamoring for new elections and the release of hostages after a senior security official was quoted in Hebrew media saying the captives are running out of time.
Besides the rally at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square and the largest anti-government demonstration on the nearby Kaplan Street, rallies were also held in Jerusalem, Haifa, Amiad Junction, Kfar Saba, Beersheba and beyond. In Karkur, near Hadera, protesters blocked a road as police warned them to disperse or face arrest. Earlier Saturday, Police also cleared activists who held “protest picnics” outside the homes of coalition members.
Speaking at a press conference ahead of the rallies, Lishay Miran, whose husband Omri Miran was snatched from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, castigated Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich for opposing a hostages-for-ceasefire agreement.
“Yesterday you tweeted that it’s a ‘surrender deal,’” she said. “Do you consider it a surrender to bring home 115 human beings?”
White House spokesman John Kirby on Friday slammed Smotrich’s comment, saying it “jeopardized” the hostages and derailed talks for their release. The far-right minister rejected that criticism Saturday evening.
Channel 12 news quoted a senior Israeli official Friday as saying the hostages “will not survive much longer in the conditions in which they are being held.” The source reportedly stressed that Israel had clear information on the matter.
Referring to that report, Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker and a prominent activist for the hostages’ release, accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of letting the abductees languish in captivity to satisfy his far-right partners and stay in power.
“The prime minister is profiteering off the hostages’ lives,” she said. Addressing Israel’s negotiating team, she added: “Don’t hesitate to clash with Netanyahu — look him straight in the eyes and don’t back down.”
Israel has pledged to return to the negotiating table on Thursday. Netanyahu has been accused of derailing the negotiations with eleventh-hour demands.
Speakers at weekly Hostages Square rallies have for months called on the government to accept Hamas’s terms for a ceasefire and exchange the hostages for Palestinian security prisoners. Netanyahu has repeatedly said he won’t agree to a deal that doesn’t eliminate Hamas’s military and governing capabilities.
On Saturday, however, Adam Hajaj, cousin of 19-year-old hostage Rom Braslavski, voiced support for soldiers to continue fighting Hamas until all the hostages are freed.
“Forget about politics, left, right, center. It’s not the story,” Hajaj said. “To our heroes in Gaza, the fighters: Keep fighting. Don’t stop till they’re all home.”
Hajaj began his address with a call for unity, referencing the Second Temple, whose destruction Jews mourn on the Tisha B’Av fast day, which will begin Monday night.
“Enough with the gratuitous hatred. Enough letting our enemies destroy us from within,” he said.
The Hostages Square rally also featured Gil Elias, a relative of Avera Mengistu, whom Hamas has held hostage since he entered Gaza of his own accord in 2014 while suffering from severe mental health issues.
“We know that he is alive and in a bad mental and physical condition,” said Elias. “He’s been there not for a month or a year, but for 10 years.”
“It’s incomprehensible to hear the testimonies of people who were released, and to think about what he’s been going through all these years,” he said.
“We need courageous people who will exert pressure to do the right, proper and moral thing,” he added, saying that successive governments had passed on the opportunity to free Mengistu.
Meanwhile, anti-government protesters outside the ruling Likud party’s headquarters in Tel Aviv locked themselves up in cages in a display of the prospect of an Israeli theocracy in 2025.
One cage read: “I’m Gay”; another reads: “I protested for a hostage deal”; a third, which referred to far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, read: “I said Ben Gvir is a criminal.”
Speaking at the Haifa protest was Carmit Palty Katzir, the sister of Elad Katzir who was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists on October 7, was murdered in captivity and his body was rescued by the IDF.
Addressing Netanyahu, Palty Katzir said: “If you don’t immediately sign a deal, the only legacy you leave behind will be of abandonment — abandoner of hostages. You won’t be remembered as Mr. Security or Mr. Economy, only as Mr. Abandonment.
“Stop the cycle of abandonment and return all the hostages,” she demanded.
It is believed that 111 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas during the October 7 terror onslaught remain in Gaza, including the bodies of 39 confirmed dead by the IDF. 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.
