Thousands of Israelis demonstrated on Saturday to ask Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire agreement that would allow the release of the last Israeli hostages still held in Gaza.
At a rally in Tel Aviv, which took place as Hamas representatives met with Egyptian and Qatari mediators in Cairo, family members of some of the more than 130 hostages still held in the Palestinian enclave said that all had to be done to bring back their loved ones.
“I’m here today to support a deal, now, yesterday,” said Natalie Eldor. “We have to bring them back. We have to bring back all the hostages, those who are alive, those who are dead. We have to bring them back. We have to change this government. This has to stop.”
These demonstrations come as the war in Gaza has raged for almost seven months.
“The only thing that keeps us going is the hope that Bar is alive and that he survives,” said Ora Rubinstein, the aunt of Bar Kupershtein, kidnapped in the deadly Hamas attack in southern Israel on October 7.
Most of those kidnapped in the attack are presumed dead, but the families want all the hostages returned.
Some 1,200 people died during the October 7 attack, according to Israeli authorities.
In retaliation for this attack, Israel launched a military campaign in the Gaza Strip which left more than 34,000 dead according to the health authorities of the Palestinian territory controlled by Hamas.
(Written by James Mackenzie; French version Camille Raynaud)
