When Anat Angrest's face appeared on the giant screens set up in central Tel Aviv, a buzz ran through the crowd who had not been able to get close to the stage where the rally organized by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum was being held. On the evening of Saturday, September 14, 100,000 people filled the city center streets for the weekly end-of-Shabbat demonstration to campaign for the release of hostages held in Gaza. For the past 11 months, the demonstration has been held just a few hundred meters from another protest calling for the resignation of the government. That evening's massive gathering, marking the 344th day of the hostages' detention, unified both causes. Angrest took the floor and addressed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directly, asking him what his plan was to secure the release of the hostages. She also questioned the role of "[Itamar] Ben Gvir and [Bezalel] Smotrich," two far-right ministers who have repeated that they oppose any exchange agreement between Palestinian hostages and prisoners while Hamas exists because this would mean, in their view, capitulation. Angrest called them "lunatics," and the crowd booed them.
In the demonstrations, Angrest is known as "the lioness," because of her combativeness in favor of the "deal," the only chance in her eyes to see her son Matan alive again, a soldier captured on October 7, 2023, at the Nahal Oz base, when he was wounded. That evening, she had decided to broadcast a recording of Matan's voice, recorded in captivity. The clip was taken from a video made by Hamas and found by the Israeli army in Gaza. She then stood stoically as a mother, while the voice of her 21-year-old son echoed through the crowded streets, blue with Israeli flags. Couples embraced, hands clasped, tears flowed. The hostages are in mortal danger, as they all became acutely aware on August 31, when it was announced that six hostages had been executed by their Hamas captors in a tunnel in southern Gaza, as the Israeli army approached.
When the news broke, Yoram Nissenboim, a veteran of the protests, described it as a punch in the stomach. "We went from despair to anger. That's a good thing. When you're in despair, you do nothing, you're floored. When you're angry, you take action," he explained. This electric shock sparked a demonstration attended by around half a million people took place in Tel Aviv, along with other rallies across the country. The floodgates had opened, which had served as a boundary between the demonstrators in favor of the deal and those demanding the government's resignation, while the largest of the organizations, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, had made it a point of honor not to include politics in its demands for 11 months. Now, there is only one demonstration.
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