NewsIsraelis rally for hostage release amid tense ceasefire talks with Hamas
Israelis rally for hostage release amid tense ceasefire talks with Hamas
5 May 2024 11:17
Thousands of Israelis demonstrated on Saturday in Tel Aviv, demanding that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accept a cease-fire agreement with Hamas, under which the remaining hostages captured by Hamas during the attack on October 7 are to be released.
The rally in Tel Aviv took place while negotiations about the cease-fire and the release of the hostages were ongoing in Cairo. Relatives and close ones of more than 130 hostages still being held in captivity said during the demonstration that everything possible must be done to bring them home.
Protests in Israel
"I'm here today to support the agreement," said Natalie Eldor. "We need to bring back all the hostages, alive and dead. We need to change the government. This needs to end," she added.
The protest was organized before Holocaust Remembrance Day Yom HaShoah, which this year falls on May 6, as the seventh month of the war in Gaza comes to an end and international pressure grows to cease wartime operations.
"The only thing that keeps us alive is the hope that Bar is alive and surviving," said Ora Rubinstein, the aunt of Bar Kupershtein, who was captured along with over 250 other people when bandits led by Hamas were slaughtering in Israeli communities near Gaza on October 7.
It is believed that many of the hostages are dead, but families want everyone to be brought home.
"Everyone must be released. We will not abandon them, as Jews were abandoned during the Holocaust," said Hanna Cohen, the aunt of 27-year-old Inbar Haiman, who was initially thought to have been taken as a hostage on October 7, but was later found to have been killed. The family believes that Hamas is holding his body in Gaza.
Netanyahu's government claims that it will not end the war until Hamas is destroyed and all hostages are released.
