With blood-red hands, Gaza hostage supporters make their mark on opening of Knesset

Protesters put on gory displays at the Knesset as it opened its winter session on Monday, staging activities to raise awareness of hostages held in the Gaza Strip and to urge that the government secure the captives’ release.

A group of women, whose faces and hands were colored blood-red and who were dressed in clothes similar to those of hostage Naama Levy as seen in a harrowing video of her abduction from the IDF base at Nahal Oz on October 7, blocked corridors and prevented the passage of lawmakers during faction meetings.

The women, their hands bound behind their backs, as were Levy’s in the video when she was seen being brutally dragged off to Gaza, were also invited to attend a meeting of the Knesset Committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality, where they stood behind chairwoman National Unity MK Pnina Tamano-Shata.

Other protesters sat blindfolded on the floor in Knesset passageways while holding up posters of hostages.

In an earlier demonstration, a group zip-tied themselves to chairs in the Knesset cafe. Some of the protesters, who wore gloves also stained blood-red, put on masks depicting the faces of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Justice Minister Yariv Levin, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, as well as Shas party leader MK Aryeh Deri who has been a top adviser on managing the war.

The protesters scuffled with Knesset guards as they were removed. One woman raised her red-gloved hands above her head as she was led off.

Protesters are physically removed after zip-tying themselves to chairs in the Knesset cafe pic.twitter.com/GYOuMQiI7j

— Sam Sokol (@SamuelSokol) October 28, 2024

Outside the Knesset, an anti-government rally included calls on behalf of the hostages who were abducted on October 7, 2023, when the Palestinian terror group Hamas led a massive cross-border attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians.

Protesters have urged the government to reach a ceasefire agreement with Hamas in return for the release of hostages but internationally mediated talks to that end have so far not made progress.

Not on the agenda

Inside the Knesset, family members of hostages took over the room used by the Knesset Interior and Environment Committee, where they declared that they were establishing a “committee to save the hostages.”

Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zaungauker, said that the hostages are “rotting in captivity in the tunnels of death for 388 days amid inhuman conditions, and in this house [the Knesset] everyone continues as usual.”

The families said they would continue to hold regular meetings of their “committee” throughout the winter session of parliament.

“A year has passed and the topic of the hostages is not even on the daily agenda of the Knesset,” they said in a statement that urged lawmakers to exert political pressure to reach an agreement for the release of the hostages.

‘We have no voice’

At the Committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality meeting, family of hostages and their supporters spoke of the dangers facing the captives, including sexual assault and rape.

Yarden Gonen, sister of hostage Romi Gonen, declared that if any of the hostages came back after having given birth in captivity she would “hunt down each and every one [of the lawmakers at the meeting] for the rest of his life, because it was possible to prevent that.”

Comedian Adi Ashkenazi attended the meeting where she tearfully called on senior women in the government “to do your job.”

“We have no voice, not in the government, not in the cabinet. We are destined to cry and be raped,” she said. “If you are a woman who managed to rise up [the political ranks], then act for women, every day.”

Previously released hostages have revealed the sexual assault and abuse they suffered while in captivity and have repeatedly warned of the danger those still held face. The United Nations also concluded in a report that there was “convincing” information of rape and sexual violence during the Hamas attack and “reasonable grounds” that the hostages face the same danger.

Family members also addressed other committees.

At a meeting of the Knesset Finance Committee, family members spoke for over an hour, after which committee chair MK Moshe Gafni closed the meeting in a show of support for them, the Haaretz daily reported.

‘F*ck the protesters’

Things did not go as smoothly at the Economics Committee, chaired by Likud MK David Bitan, who interrupted Sari Gat, aunt of Carmel Gat, a hostage who was killed in Hamas captivity.

ערלות לב

ח"כ דוד ביטן לדודתה של כרמל גת – "תקצרי… תקצרי… את חוזרת על עצמך". pic.twitter.com/PO6CLdKT1b

— Orly Harel (@OrlyHar) October 28, 2024

Gat, a resident of Kibbutz Be’eri, the scene of a massacre during the Hamas attack, spoke to the committee about the difficulties residents of the south have faced and of learning that her niece had been killed, but Bitan cut her off and asked that she “be quick, okay?”

“Excuse me?” fumed Gat. “They are there for a year, I can’t be brief, don’t you understand that? Don’t you understand that people are in life-threatening danger?”

“Don’t shout at me,” Bitan responded. “You are repeating yourself.”

At the National Security Committee, Shay Dickman, cousin of Carmel Gat who was executed in Hamas captivity along with five other hostages by their guards as the IDF closed in on their position, declared that lawmakers “can no longer say that military pressure will save the hostages,” a reference to the government’s declared strategy.

Later in the day, the Knesset held a formal opening ceremony attended by President Isaac Herzog and Netanyahu along with lawmakers.

There too, families of hostages who were in the visitors’ gallery held up posters of their loved ones and banners demanding the hostages, be saved while some shouted during Netanyahu’s speech during the ceremony.

During the morning, protests calling for a hostage deal rallied outside the homes of several government ministers including Gideon Sa’ar, Gila Gamliel, Yoav Kisch, Yariv Levin, and Knesset Defense and Foreign Affairs committee chair MK Yuli Edelstein.

At the home of Transportation Minister Miri Regev, protesters unfurled a yellow ribbon with the slogan “They are being murdered because of you,” Haaretz reported.

Regev complained about the protesters, the Kan public broadcaster reported, using a vulgarity that can be roughly translated as “fuck the protesters.”

“They protest outside my house from 6 a.m.” she told Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi at a faction meeting of the Likud party. “Fuck the protesters.”

“Enough Miri, everything is being recorded,” unnamed ministers reportedly cautioned Regev.

In the evening, hundreds of protesters gathered outside Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem demanding a hostage deal and the toppling of the government, with a number of activists arrested during clashes with police.

Following the larger protest near the Knesset earlier, a number of activists — including former defense minister Moshe Ya’alon — continued toward the Prime Minister’s Residence on Azza Street in the capital, which had been blocked off to traffic all day by police. There the protesters shouted slogans and held up signs calling for new elections and blaming Netanyahu for the failure to release the hostages.

In a statement, police said that nine protesters were arrested during clashes with officers by activists who “began to disturb the peace on Azza Street and did not listen to police instructions,” attempting to break through the barriers in the designated protest zone to get closer to Netanyahu’s home. Police said one of those arrested was carrying containers of paint.

It is believed that 97 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 37 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli 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.