LIsraelis are showing their anger. In the streets of Tel Aviv, several hundred residents demonstrated this Saturday, November 2, to shout their anger against the government that they believe is incapable. to achieve a ceasefire with Hamas in the Gaza Strip and free the 97 hostages still held in the Palestinian territory for more than a year.
Hostage posters and flags in hand, everyone is demanding in a square renamed “Hostage Square” since the start of the war on October 7, 2023, that an agreement be found “now”. “Stop the war,” the demonstrators chanted. “The cycle of violence is getting worse week after week and we don't see an end to it,” one of the demonstrators whose uncle, Avraham Munder, died, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). in captivity. Everyone is now calling for a truce with Hamas, even though Israel has claimed to have achieved the majority of its military objectives, notably elimination last month, of the leader of the Palestinian Islamist movement and instigator of terrorist attacks on Israeli soil Yahya Sinouar.
Benjamin Netanyahu accused of sabotaging truce attempts
In the demonstrators' sights, anger towards Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accused of blocking talks in order to stay in power, continues to rise. “Every time we try a hostage deal, he sabotages it. He made Sinouar responsible and now that he is no longer there, he finds another reason each time,” criticized Ifat Kalderon, cousin of the Franco-Israeli hostage Ofer Kalderon and figure of the anti-government protest. “It’s a bloody war, it must stop, enough is enough. There are so many soldiers who died, and ordinary citizens,” she added to AFP.
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The demonstrators also support the tens of thousands of soldiers, including many reservists recalled to the flags, exhausted by a war which has lasted for more than a year in Gaza. Others, for their part, hope for stronger involvement from the United States, Israel's historic ally, to end the conflict as the country must elect its next president on Tuesday. “I hope the winner will be adult enough to take the kids of the Middle East by the ear and bring them to the negotiating table,” said one of the participants in the demonstration.
While the mediating countries, namely Egypt, the United States and Qatar, last week relaunched indirect negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movementon the ground, the war still rages. According to a latest count from AFP, the attack of October 7, 2023 cost the lives of 1,206 Israelis, mostly civilians. A figure that includes both hostages killed and those who died in captivity. Across the border, in Gaza, 43,314 people died, again mostly civilians according to data from the Hamas Ministry of Health.
