Families of Israeli hostages are calling on the public to take to the streets on Saturday evening in support of the 50 hostages held in Hamas captivity for nearly 700 days, followed by a nationwide strike planned for Sunday.
The central weekly protest will take place at Hostages Square outside the Tel Aviv Museum at 8 p.m. Addressing the crowd will be Dana Silberman Sitton, sister and aunt of murdered hostages Shiri, Kfir and Ariel Bibas; Itzik Horn, father of Eitan Horn and captivity survivor Iair Horn; captivity survivor Noga Weiss, daughter of murdered hostage Ilan Weiss; and Mor Godard, daughter of murdered hostage Manny Godard, who was supposed to have celebrated his 75th birthday on Friday.
Pushpa Joshi, sister of Nepali agricultural volunteer Bipin Joshi, will also address the crowd in English. Joshi was taken captive from Kibbutz Alumim on October 7. His mother and sister landed in Israel on Monday for their first visit since his abduction.
“Fifty hostages have been held in Hamas’s death tunnels for nearly 700 days. We have all seen, with our hearts torn, the images of Evyatar David and Rom Breslavsky suffering under unimaginable human torment,” said a statement from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.
“Now is the time to act: to take to the streets, support the families of the hostages, support the families of the soldiers, and influence the future of the hostages and the future of the country — because only the people can bring the hostages home,” the statement continued.
The demonstrations will be followed by a planned nationwide general strike on Sunday, organized by the October Council, which represents some family members of those held hostage in Gaza or whose family members have been killed in the fighting.
Families called the strike to protest the government’s decision to expand the war in Gaza with a new offensive rather than sign a deal to return the abductees.
Hundreds of local authorities, businesses, universities, tech companies, and organizations will join the strike.
Pinchas Idan, the chair of the Airports Authority employees’ union, has stated that they will do their best to ensure that passengers are not affected, despite some workers planning to strike.
The strike is set to begin at 7 a.m. on Sunday and to include events, marches, speeches, ceremonies, and demonstrations across the country. Convoys of protesters will converge in Tel Aviv in the evening, where they will march with hostages’ families from Tel Aviv–Savidor Center railway station to Hostages Square for a central rally at 8:00 p.m.
“The days are long, the nights are even longer. Longing burns the soul. But amidst the pain, hope still beats,” wrote together Anat Angrest, the mother of hostage Matan Angrest, Vicky Cohen, the mother of hostage Nimrod Cohen, and Lishi Miran, the wife of Omri Miran, in a letter addressed to their loved ones.
“An entire nation has not given up on you. This coming Sunday, the whole nation will stop their lives for you, for your freedom, for the lives of our soldiers.”
Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are holding 50 hostages, including 49 of the 251 abducted in the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza. 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.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 60,000 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.