‘Winter has come’: Rallies to highlight risk to remaining hostages’ health
Families Forum: Emaciated hostages ill-prepared for 2nd winter in ‘Hamas’s death tunnels’; prominent tech entrepreneur, anti-government activist says he might leave if PM reelected
In rallies expected to draw thousands across the country Saturday night, the Hostage Families Forum will highlight the dangers to their loved one’s health as they begin their second winter in Hamas captivity.
The central rally, in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, is set to feature speeches from several hostages’ relatives, including Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg, the parents of slain Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin. Smaller rallies will be held in Jerusalem, Kiryat Gat and at the Shaar HaNegev Junction in the south.
Announcing the rallies, the Families Forum noted its health team’s assessment from earlier this month that remaining hostages had lost about half their body weight, leaving them vulnerable to the coming winter in the harsh conditions of captivity.
“Last year, we stood together in the rain at Hostages Square and were sure the hostages would soon come back,” said the statement. “A year has passed, winter has come, and 101 hostages are still languishing in Hamas’s death tunnels in Gaza.”
The statement reiterated the Forum’s call for all the hostages to be released in a single-stage deal, as opposed to staggered releases as proposed in draft agreements.
The Forum also announced a gathering at its Tel Aviv headquarters on Sunday to mark a year since the November 2023 truce-hostage deal, which subsequent negotiations have failed to replicate.
A block away from Hostages Square, in front of the Begin Street entrance to the IDF headquarters, hundreds of anti-government activists and some hostage families are expected to rally for a hostage deal, an end to the war in Gaza, and to express their opposition to the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Mothers Against Violence, a left-wing group involved in the anti-government protests, said it will hold a march titled “Struggling for Democracy” from the Begin Street rally to Dizengoff Square, in Tel Aviv’s center.
The Begin Street protests — and, to a lesser extent, the rallies at Hostages Square — frequently feature accusations that Netanyahu is thwarting a truce-hostage deal in Gaza out of fear his far-right coalition partners will topple the government in case of a ceasefire.
Anti-government protesters also argue the government must resign and regain the public’s trust in a new election, after failing to prevent the Hamas onslaught that sparked the war in Gaza on October 7, 2023, when thousands of terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages. The next election is set for October 2026.
In an interview published Friday in the Maariv newspaper, prominent tech entrepreneur and anti-government activist Eyal Waldman said he may leave the country if Netanyahu is reelected.
The premier “is fully responsible for the failure” to prevent Hamas’s onslaught, said Waldman, whose daughter Danielle was murdered during the shock assault.
“The country is going downhill and there is a limit to how much you can take,” he said. “If the situation deteriorates, if Netanyahu is reelected — there’s a chance I’ll leave.”
It is believed that 97 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas released 105 civilians during the weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that.
Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 37 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.
