Tens of thousands of Israelis are set to join hostage families at mass rallies on Saturday night to urge the government to reach a deal that will free all the remaining captives held in Gaza after Israel and Hamas accepted the outlines of a US truce deal.
The rallies will be held as the security cabinet gathers to discuss Hamas’s response to the emerging ceasefire-hostage deal, ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to the White House on Monday.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum demanded a comprehensive deal to end the war and release the remaining 50 hostages, at least 28 of whom are dead, even as Israeli officials are reportedly working to see which living hostages to prioritize in the partial, phased release under discussion.
“Amid reports of a partial deal, and the prime minister’s trip to the United States, hostage families invite Israelis of all stripes to come to Hostages Square and join them in a clear call: ‘This is the time to finish the job, reach a comprehensive deal and ensure full Israeli victory,” said the Forum in a press release on its weekly main rally in Tel Aviv.
The rally is set to include speeches by Yuval Sharabi, the daughter of slain hostage Yossi Sharabi and niece of released hostage Eli Sharabi; Macabit Meyer, the aunt of twin-brother hostages Gali and Ziv Berman; Michel Illouz, father of slain hostage Guy Illouz; Yechiel Yehoud, father of released hostage Arbel Yehoud; and Dani Elgarat, brother of slain hostage Itzik Elgarat.
The Hostages Square rally will be hosted by Eylon Levy, a former English-language spokesman for the government and prominent hasbara (public diplomacy) activist, the Forum said. Actor Lior Ashkenazi usually hosts the rallies. Smaller hostage families rallies are set to take place in Jerusalem, Kiryat Gat and the Sha’ar HaNegev Junction in the south.
A separate anti-government hostage families’ rally will take place in tandem in front of the Begin Road entrance to the IDF headquarters, a block away from Hostages Square. That rally will be bolstered by protesters marching from an earlier anti-government protesters in Tel Aviv.
The hostage families’ rallies will begin at 8 p.m., two hours before the cabinet is set to convene. Hebrew media cited Israeli officials on Saturday as saying Israel has received and is examining Hamas’s response to the latest proposal.
Netanyahu has publicly rejected a permanent ceasefire in Gaza until Hamas is vanquished, but is reportedly working with US President Donald Trump on a wide-ranging plan that would end the war, despite the opposition of his government’s right-wing flank. Trump said Friday that a Gaza ceasefire-hostage deal could be reached in the coming week.
The deal on the table would secure the release of half of the 20 hostages known to still be alive, with eight freed on the first day and two released on the 50th day, according to an Arab diplomat from one of the mediating countries. Roughly half of the remaining slain hostages would also be released, with five being freed on the seventh day, five more freed on the 30th day and eight more freed on the 60th day.
While Hamas said it had submitted a “positive” response to the proposal, a source involved in mediation efforts told The Times of Israel that the terror group wants to remove “good faith” as a condition for the ceasefire; resume aid deliveries through mechanisms backed by the United Nations and other international aid organization; and for IDF to withdraw to the area it controlled before the collapse of the previous ceasefire in March.
Channel 12 reported Friday that a Health Ministry committee and an IDF Military Intelligence Committee are gathering information on the well-being of the remaining living hostages, and will advise Israel’s hostage negotiators on which captives it is most urgent to get out. The living hostages are all considered “humanitarian cases” after so long in brutal captivity, according to the report.
It hasn’t been confirmed yet whether the hostage negotiating team will be able to use the list supplied to it by the professional committees. In the last hostage deal, an Israeli list was submitted to Hamas ahead of time.
Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are holding 50 hostages, including 49 of the 251 abducted during the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, when thousands of terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza. Hamas is also holding the body of an IDF soldier killed in Gaza in 2014.
There are grave concerns for the well-being of two hostages whose condition is unknown, Israeli officials have said.
Hamas released 30 hostages — 20 Israeli civilians, five soldiers, and five Thai nationals — and the bodies of eight slain Israeli captives during the 42-day ceasefire that ended in 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.