She sat alone, on a plastic armchair, looking dazed. It was 11:30 pm on Tuesday, November 21, and Hadas Kalderon had just learned that she wouldn't know tonight whether her two children, kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, would be returned to her. Let alone when. Sahar, 16, and Erez, 12, were abducted with their father and her ex-husband Ofer from the Nir Oz kibbutz near the Gaza Strip. Their mother waited here all day, in a makeshift camp by the Kirya, the headquarters of Israel's military command in Tel Aviv.

In the late afternoon, unlike in previous days, she did not return to the apartment that had been provided for her after she had been evacuated from Nir Oz, where her house had been burned down. Kalderon chose to stay here, hanging on for any news, while a meeting devoted to the fate of the hostages was held just above her head in the Kirya offices. She desperately hoped that she would be able to fall asleep tonight with the guarantee that the ongoing negotiations would finally find a solution.

Before her eyes, on either side of the immense Menahem Begin avenue, a kind of pitched battle developed over the course of the evening, like a miniature representation of the war within the war that is developing in Israel around the hostage issue: placards against placards, insults against insults and loudspeakers at full volume, demonstrators clashed without ever reaching each other, under police surveillance.

On one side, Kalderon's, there was a rather thin crowd of family representatives and sympathizers who had come to demand the release of the hostages "now". This word, which the protesters hammered out several times at the top of their lungs, beats a rhythm to all the demonstrations in support of the hostages. They believe the government must reach an agreement with Hamas, even if it means a temporary ceasefire and an exchange with Palestinians held in Israel. Even if this means releasing only some of the Gazan captives – children and some women – as a first step. Many families are not here, no doubt those whose loved ones would not be affected by this agreement.

On the other side, where there was an even smaller but far more aggressive gathering, people were brandishing signs demanding "Revenge for Israel." Some were armed with the M16 assault rifles that the nationalists who populate the West Bank settlements often carry. They are all against the idea of prisoner exchanges, in line with the leaders of the far-right Otzma Yehudit ("Jewish Power") party, whose leader, Itamar Ben-Gvir, is the minister of national security in Benjamin Netanyahu's government. Their signs also read "Don't stop" – in other words, don't stop the war against Hamas.

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