Hundreds gathered in Rehovot Monday morning to mark the 20th birthday of Nimrod Cohen, a resident of the city who has been held hostage by Hamas in Gaza for over nine months.
Residents, accompanied by employees of the companies where Cohen's parents work, municipality workers and supporters, marched through the city led by Cohen's family and carrying blue balloons.
Cohen's family and the Hostage Family Forum planned additional activities to mark the birthday - a Rehovot volunteer group will make food for the battalion Cohen served in, youth movements will clean the beach in his honor, and a special bike riding path of 20 km. will be set up in his honor.
Hostage families also planned to protest to mark Cohen's birthday outside the Kirya military headquarters Monday night. The protest will be led by Cohen's family, and protesters will release hundreds of balloons.
"283 days without my son Nimrod," said his father Yehuda Cohen. "Every day that the prime minister does not agree to a deal that will bring all the hostages back, he decides to give up on and sacrifice them."
"We will mark Nimrod's 20th birthday tonight with a big protest for a deal and the return of all the hostages."
Cohen had been in service in the IDF for less than a year when he was taken hostage. His brother described him as a normal 19-year-old.
Brother describes him as shy, regular 19 year old
"Nimrod is a very shy boy, and he’s a very simple man. Before October 7, his main concerns were playing Fortnite with his friends, streaming it on Discord, and going to parties. He was like every other regular 19-year-old guy," he said.
Also handling the difficulty of marking moments that should be about new beginnings and rebuilding while the hostages are in Gaza, Nira Sharabi took down the poster of her husband Yossi, who was killed while in Hamas captivity, in preparation of the demolition of the wreckage of their Beeri home from which he was taken hostage.
Nira's brother-in-law Eli Sharabi was also taken hostage, and is still held by Hamas.
"This is an absurd situation," said Kibbutz Be'eri management said. "It emphasizes that the physical destruction can be cleared and rehabilitated, but as long as the hostages are held by Hamas, there is no possibility to really rebuild."
Yossi Sharabi was likely killed by an IAF airstrike in February, an IDF probe found, stating that it is possible he was killed by Hamas in captivity. Sharabi was being held by Hamas in a structure adjacent to the structure that the air force attacked, but IDF intelligence did not know that at the time.
Some 10 of the 120 hostages still held in Gaza are from Kibbutz Be'eri.
A national day of disruption to call for a deal to bring the hostages home was planned for campuses across the country Tuesday, protest organizers said. "We won't go on vacation until the hostages go free," said student organizers. "It can't be that the semester is almost over and the hostages are not home."
Yonah Jeremy Bob AND NATHAN KLABIN/THE MEDIA LINE contributed to this report.