Thousands of Israelis marched in Jerusalem on Saturday night, demanding the government secure a hostage deal after US President Joe Biden unveiled a new Israel-proposed plan on Friday to free the remaining captives in Gaza and reach a ceasefire with Hamas.
“This evening is an evening of hope,” said anti-government activist Tova Sheleg from a podium outside the President’s Residence, where protesters wrapped up their march. “There is a real chance for a deal, one that can bring the hostages home.”
The march and rally ended peacefully with no arrests or confrontations with police.
The fate of the 121 hostages held in Gaza since October 7 appears to be at a critical juncture following the Biden’s speech and hesitation from Israeli leadership regarding the plan, as far-right ministers in Netanyahu’s coalition threaten to topple the government if it pushes forward with a deal.
The three-phase plan was initially proposed by Israel and approved by the war cabinet comprising Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and minister Benny Gantz, but now that the outline has gone public, many families of the hostages are worried that the premier will try to quash it.
“In the coming hours there will be very strong attempts to torpedo the deal,” said the Hostages and Missing Families Forum on Saturday night in a call for mass protests. “We are entering into an immediate and aggressive struggle that demands the State of Israel carry out the deal it proposed itself.”
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The local branch of the Hostage Families Forum — which initially declined to participate, objecting to the dearth of hostage families in the rally’s speaking lineup — reluctantly decided at the last minute to join the march, though it did not officially support the rally that followed.
Earlier this week, an organizer from the Forum called the lack of hostage family members in the planned rally’s lineup “a serious and significant omission.”
A handful of hostage families led the march from the top of Ben Yehuda Street, surrounded by protesters waving yellow flags in support of their cause, honking blow horns and waving signs thanking Biden for his statement.
The protests in Jerusalem were planned to revolve around the upcoming Jerusalem Day holiday, which Israelis will mark Tuesday evening through Wednesday, but organizers shifted course in wake of Biden’s speech.
As protesters marched past the hostage families’ tent outside Netanyahu’s official residence, members and volunteers with the movement held up pictures of Hamas captives for the passersby.
A spokesman for the anti-government group Safeguarding our Shared Home claimed Saturday night’s rally was the largest Jerusalem protest since October 7, with some 5,000 people in attendance. Organizers noted the distinction between nationwide protests that were held in Jerusalem, which have numbered in the tens of thousands, and those led by organizations actually based in the city.
Though small compared to Tel Aviv’s estimated 120,000 demonstrators the same night, the turnout was noteworthy for Jerusalem, which has a conservative slant.
Biden’s speech appeared to have strengthened pressure from anti-government activists to end the war, as calls for a ceasefire came hand-in-hand with the demand for new elections.
Avi Dabush, an evacuee from Kibbutz Nirim near the Gaza border, told the crowd that his community had “paid the heaviest prices” after years of abandonment from the government, mentioning two of his friends, Yagev Buchshtav and Nadav Popplewell, who are held captive by Hamas in Gaza and many others who were murdered during the terror group’s October 7 massacre.
“Elections now are necessary but not enough” said Dabush. “I am joining President Biden in calling for a deal now, for a ceasefire that will return us Nadav and Yagev and 123 other hostages.”
“We must not close our eyes, we have to see the hostages, we have to look and see what is happening in our names in Gaza. We have to see the innocents who have been killed, the starvation, the orphans and the refugees,” she said.
“On June 13 we will mark 250 days of war, 250 days of captivity, 250 days that our government has paid attention only to its interests rather than the human beings that live here,” she continued, as the crowd chanted against Netanyahu’s government between her pauses.
Settling for no less than the complete destruction of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Saturday evening threatened to collapse Netanyahu’s coalition if he were to put the plan into action.
Eyal Gur, an organizer with Safeguarding our Shared Home, said the ultranationalist politicians had “decided to take the country captive” with their threats.
“Precisely from people who said ‘together we will win,’ and demanded unity in the past few months, we expect that they will maintain this unity when the entire nation is united around the prime minister to bring about a deal. Abandoning the hostages now will cost them their lives,” he told The Times of Israel.
The war in Gaza erupted after Hamas’s October 7 massacre, which saw some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border into Israel by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 252 hostages, mostly civilians, many amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.
It is believed that 121 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. Three 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 37 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 the bodies of fallen IDF soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin since 2014, as well as two Israeli civilians, Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, who are both thought to be alive after entering the Strip of their own accord in 2014 and 2015 respectively.
[Times of Israel ]
