In front of a few hundred people on Wednesday, April 16, at a Tel Aviv square where the families of the hostages gather, Ilana Gritzewsky, 31, once again recounted her abduction on October 7, 2023, the sexual assaults during her transfer to Gaza and then the days and nights of terror. "I lost 25 pounds in 55 days. I suffer from gastritis and colitis, and throughout my captivity, I was vomiting, had diarrhea and was constantly fainting." The day before, at the same place, Moran Stela Yanai, 41, and Noga Weiss, 19, described the psychological suffering endured. The day before that, it was Meirav Tal, 55, and in the previous days, it was the mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters of hostages who died or are still held – 24 presumed alive, 35 presumed dead, out of the 251 abducted on October 7, by Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The "Hostages Square" in Tel Aviv remains the beating heart of a protest movement expected to reignite more strongly since the end of the Passover holidays on Saturday, as the counter – 561 since the terrorist attack on October 7 – ticks on television screens, websites and in the minds of millions of Israeli Jews.

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