Large crowds were expected to take to the streets on Saturday evening, demanding the government reach a ceasefire deal for the release of the 48 remaining hostages in Gaza, a day after security services announced they had recovered the bodies of two captives from the Strip.

The main weekly rally is set to take place at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square. Organizers said the one-year anniversary of the murder of six hostages by their captors as Israeli troops neared, should serve as a reminder of the dangers of military pressure amid the widening offensive in the Strip.

“As plans move forward to conquer Gaza City, a hostage deal remains stalled at the negotiating table – serving as a painful reminder of last year’s lesson: military pressure kills hostages,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement, highlighting the killing of Alexander Lobanov, Carmel Gat, Ori Danino, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi and Almog Sarusi last year.

“This nightmare must end! For 692 days, our loved ones have endured hell, and we as a nation have lost all sense of direction,” the forum said.

“Escalating military pressure means abandoning the living hostages to their fate and leaving the bodies of those already dead buried forever in Gaza’s rubble,” the forum said.

Hamas warned Israel on Friday that the planned offensive to conquer Gaza City will subject hostages in the area to the “same risks” as the terror group’s fighters.

Speakers at the Saturday night rally will include ⁠Gil Dickmann, the cousin of Carmel Gat; Noam Idan Ben Ezra, the sister of Tsachi Idan; Tuval Haim, the brother of Yotam Haim; Roy and Alon Chen, the brothers of Itay Chen; Moshe Or, the brother of Avinatan Or.

Saturday’s protest comes on the heels of Tuesday’s day of action, the second in two weeks, after a major protest earlier this month drew crowds of over one million, according to the forum, with some 500,000 in Tel Aviv alone.

On Friday, it was announced that the weekly anti-government protest held on Tel Aviv’s Begin Road on Saturday nights would fold into the central demonstration held by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, to avoid a split in the movement.

“Go to junctions near your homes, to Hostages Square, and to every protest location where they’re fighting for my Matan and the other 49 hostages,” wrote protest leader Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan is held hostage in Gaza.

“I want to thank the amazing public who have joined us and supported me and the other families. Only the nation will return the hostages.”

Zangauker had led the protests on Begin Road, which — unlike the demonstrations at nearby Hostages Square — were explicitly anti-government and organized in part by anti-government protest groups.

Meanwhile, former hostage Noga Weiss, the daughter of slain captive Ilan Weiss, whose body was recovered from Gaza on Friday, thanked security forces on Saturday and called for the remaining captives to be freed in a deal.

Forces from the military and Shin Bet security service recovered Weiss’s body along with the remains of a second hostage, whose name was not immediately published as the identification process was still ongoing at the Abu Kabir National Institute of Forensic Medicine.

“We want to say a huge thank you in the name of the whole family to the security forces who brought back our father after 692 days,” Noga Weiss said in a post on social media.

“We hope and pray that all the hostages will be returned in one deal that will not endanger the security forces or the hostages today,” she wrote.

Ilan Weiss, 56, was killed on the morning of October 7, 2023, while defending Kibbutz Be’eri from Hamas-led terrorists as a member of the emergency response team. His wife, Shiri, and Noga were also taken hostage and later freed during a weeklong truce and hostage release deal in November 2023.

Saturday’s protest comes as Channel 12 reported that Israeli defense chiefs were set to present an all-but united front to the security cabinet on Sunday, beseeching ministers to accept the current proposal for a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza over the government’s desired offensive in Gaza City.

Those urging the deal over the expanded Gaza operation include IDF chief Eyal Zamir, Mossad Director David Barnea and National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi, the report said. A notable exception is the acting chief of the Shin Bet, identified only by the initial “Shin” for security reasons. His exact stance was not detailed.

Security chiefs will also question why Israel has not held a cabinet meeting to at least seriously consider the latest offer on the table — an offer broadly similar to the proposal Jerusalem had itself recently approved.

Retired generals, opposition lawmakers and citizens in support of a hostage deal have all warned publicly that Hamas guards could murder captives if Israeli troops draw near, as the terror group has done to other hostages in the past. Family members of slain hostages whose bodies are held in the Strip have also warned that a Gaza City takeover could prevent the retrieval of their loved ones’ remains.

The military, however, has started active preparations for the new offensive. Thousands of reservists have been called up for the operation and are expected to report for duty from September 2, with the maneuver to begin in the following weeks.

Jerusalem is moving forward with the plan despite broad international opposition — with the exception of the US — as well as anger at home among many citizens who feel the move poses an unjustified risk to the remaining hostages, as well as to soldiers.

Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are holding 48 hostages, including 47 of the 251 abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023. They include the bodies of at least 28 confirmed dead by the IDF. Twenty are believed to be alive, and there are grave concerns for the well-being of two others, Israeli officials have said. Hamas is also holding the body of an IDF soldier killed in Gaza in 2014.

Hamas released 30 hostages — 20 Israeli civilians, five soldiers, and five Thai nationals — and the bodies of eight slain Israeli captives during a ceasefire between January and March, and one additional hostage, a dual American-Israeli citizen, in May as a “gesture” to the United States.

The terror group freed 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that in the early weeks of the war. In exchange, Israel has freed some 2,000 jailed Palestinian terrorists, security prisoners, and Gazan terror suspects detained during the war.

Eight hostages have been rescued from captivity by troops alive, and the bodies of 49 have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors, and the body of a soldier who was killed in 2014.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 62,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed over 22,000 combatants in battle as of August and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 onslaught.