Media, thousands of people take to the streets in Israel for agreement on the release of hostages
Tens of thousands of people are demonstrating in Israel as talks are underway to reach an agreement for the release of hostages and a ceasefire. While awaiting Hamas’s response to the general lines of the hostage agreement, the families of the kidnapped began demonstrating in front of the Begin Gate in front of the Kirya, together with other activists. The families are calling on the government to accept an end to the war, the only way to allow a deal that brings everyone back. At the end of the demonstration, families left Begin Gate towards Habima Square. «We are in a fateful moment and we must ensure – the families of the hostages underlined – that the current agreement is implemented and that all the kidnapped people return home. Today it is clear that the only way to bring them back is through Israel’s commitment to ending the war, and the Israeli government must choose to save lives and return those abandoned. More than 100 families are waiting for their loved ones, the government must not make mistakes, it is forbidden to surrender to the extremist minority. The people want the abductees to be home, and we ask the government to end the war and return them to us. This would be the real victory.” In Tel Aviv, in Democracy Square, the speakers of the anti-government protest have once again called for early elections. “We need a different government, a government that is not busy all day inciting and dividing,” say Uri and Bar Hefetz, father and daughter of Nirim who were displaced from their homes after the October 7 attack by of Hamas. “We want to go home, and to go home, the entire government must go now.” “Over the last 20 years, we have become accustomed to being a pawn in a political game, we have become accustomed to rockets as to a drizzle,” says Yonatan Shamriz, whose brother Alon was a hostage accidentally killed by the IDF. «There are those who think that our struggle will end when early elections are called, but I tell you that that is the day another struggle will begin. It will be a fight for a new and moral leadership that represents us and not itself.”
