Thousands of people took to the streets on Saturday night to call for a deal to release the hostages and end the war in Gaza, resuming the weekly protests after last week’s demonstrations were paused for the Passover holiday.

The protests came hours after Hamas released a propaganda video featuring hostage Elkana Bohbot, in the third video the captive has been featured in this year. In the video, a distraught and gaunt-looking Bohbot addresses his family, telling his wife and son that he dreams about returning home to them.

After Bohbot’s family approved the publication of the video released Saturday, it put out a statement saying that “we are deeply shocked and devastated. At the end of Passover, the only thing we are experiencing is the complete opposite of freedom. How much suffering must a person endure?”

Saturday’s rallies featured speeches from a number of former hostages, including Ilana Gritzewsky, who told a crowd of hundreds at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square that her Hamas captors “hurt me — physically, emotionally, psychologically, sexually — until I reached the depth of fear and humiliation.”

“But Hamas didn’t win,” she said. “Nobody took [my] spirit of faith and hope, and nobody will.”

Gritzewsky was abducted with her partner Matan Zangauker from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz during the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023. She was released during the weeklong Gaza truce the following month. Zangauker remains in captivity.

“They took him from my life, stole my humanity, beat me, humiliated me, left me without food, without water, without dignity,” Gritzewsky told the crowd.

“Instead of stopping everything and bringing them home, this government chooses to turn its back, chooses to abandon,” she charged. “And I ask you: How can this be? How can a state founded in the wake of the Holocaust forget its sons and daughters who are being held in holocaust conditions?”

“The government has given up, but we’ll fight,” she said. “Because it’s not a political issue. It’s a matter of life and death.”

Also speaking at the Tel Aviv rally was Omer Shem Tov, who was released from Hamas captivity in February as part of the Gaza truce that collapsed last month.

In his speech, Shem Tov called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “make the brave, Zionist, Jewish, human step” and bring back the remaining 59 captives from Gaza in a single release, even at the price of a halt to the fighting in the Strip.

“Now. In a single release,” said Shem Tov. “And if that means ending the war, then end the war,” he added, noting that opinion polls show a large majority of the public would support the move. Netanyahu said in a lengthy statement Saturday evening that he wouldn’t end the war in exchange for getting back the abductees, arguing that this would amount to “capitulation” to the Palestinian terror group.

“When I was there, in captivity, I experienced psychological terrorism,” Shem Tov told the crowd. “They told me Israel was falling apart, that our society was disintegrating, that the enmity, schisms and division were empowering Hamas.”

Shem Tov said he didn’t believe his captors, and that when he returned, he saw “we have a strong, united nation.” He thanked the Hostages Square crowd, saying he had seen their rallies while in captivity.

Shem Tov added that a week ago, when singing at the Passover Seder about how the ancient Israelites broke free of slavery in Egypt, he understood “the significance of this holiday. The significance of this nation. The significance of this state. And that significance is freedom: mine, my family’s, my friends’.”

“But that freedom won’t be whole without freedom for my brothers who remain in Gaza,” he said.

Speaking to hundreds of anti-government protesters on Tel Aviv’s Begin Street, Omri Lifshitz, son of captivity survivor Yocheved Lifshitz and slain hostage Oded Lifshitz, appeared to accuse some right-wing bereaved and hostage families of being “willing to sacrifice their sons to conquer Gaza’s land.”

In his speech, Lifshitz said that such a willingness exists in parts of “the government and the extremist forums” — apparently a reference to the Gvura Forum of families of soldiers who were killed fighting in Gaza, and the Tikva Forum of hostage families who support the release of their loved ones through military pressure.

“Those who sanctify land will never measure up to those who sanctify life,” he said, expressing fear that Israel’s renewed Gaza offensive will kill the remaining living hostages and quash any hope of returning the dead ones’ bodies.

“It’s clear to everyone that withdrawing from Gaza and ending the horrible war would have brought back the bodies many months ago,” he said, calling for “retreating from Gaza forever.”

Yotam Cohen, brother of captive soldier Nimrod Cohen, told the protesters that Netanyahu and his allies will see “no quarter for these deeds.”

“We will remember forever. We’ll remind the next generations that at a time of war, a government of horrors, haters of Israel, worked to sacrifice citizens and soldiers,” he declared.

Referring to Netanyahu’s spokesman Omer Dostri, who said earlier Saturday evening that Israel can’t bring back all the hostages because that would require an end to the war and leave Hamas in power, Cohen said he sees the statement as a “direct admission of the incompetence of the government and its leader.”

“Netanyahu is incompetent and incapable of being the prime minister of Israel,” he said.

Also on Saturday, police clashed with hundreds of anti-government protesters outside Moshav Mazor, in central Israel, where Netanyahu and his family had been expected to celebrate Mimouna, the festival marking the end of Passover.

Despite efforts by the demonstrators to encircle the community, Netanyahu and his wife Sara ended up arriving at Mazor for the henna pre-marriage party of their son Avner, hosted by the family of the latter’s fiancée Amit Yardeni.

In a statement, the Prime Minister’s Office claimed Netanyahu had canceled his planned participation in the Mimouna party, due to an incident in Gaza in which a soldier was killed and five were injured. However, the Mimouna and the henna appeared to have been the same event, which the premier did attend.

https://x.com/RomanoHoring/status/1913703600028815461

Among the protesters outside the moshav was Yoram Yehudai, whose son Ron was murdered by Hamas terrorists at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023. Yoram sought to meet with Netanyahu, but was blocked by police, Ynet reported.

Terror groups in the Gaza Strip still hold a total of 59 hostages, including 58 of the 251 abducted on October 7, 2023. They include the bodies of at least 35 confirmed dead by the IDF.

There are 24 hostages believed to be alive who were slated for release in the proposed second stage of the ceasefire deal agreed upon in January, which fell apart after its first stage ended in March, with Israel renewing the fighting in Gaza.