Families of hostages and supporters gathered outside the Prime Minister’s Office on Tuesday afternoon to call for a deal that would free all the hostages as other family members met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the details of a deal.
Many met later, with public supporters, at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv for a demonstration, just as hundreds marched in Jerusalem in the evening against a partial deal like the one now on the table.
At the meeting in the afternoon, the prime minister told family members that negotiations are ongoing with Hamas to bring back all the hostages, Sharon Sharabi said. Sharabi’s brother, Eli, is still held by Hamas, as is her brother, Yossi, who was killed last January, likely by an IDF airstrike.
Sharabi said the families demanded that Netanyahu outline additional stages of a hostage deal and said that the family members asked the prime minister hard questions, some of which he did not answer to avoid jeopardizing a deal.
“These are critical hours for Israeli citizens and the State of Israel, with time running out for all our hostages who have been held captive by Hamas for over 15 months. We are united in our primary goal – bringing home all the hostages,” Netanyahu said.
Bring them home now
Lishay Lavi Miran, whose husband, Omri Miran, is still in Hamas captivity, also spoke after the meeting, saying, “We won’t stop until the last hostage is returned. We will stand here and continue demanding everyone’s release.”“We demand agreements to be made now promising everyone’s return, not in the future. Time has not been on our side for a long while.”Gil Dickmann, whose cousin Carmel Gat was killed in Hamas captivity after surviving for more than 11 months, also spoke, saying the families “are deeply concerned that 465 days after October 7, there is still no agreement promising the return of all of the hostages. We don’t want to leave anyone behind or hear about more hostages being murdered in captivity, like Carmel.“Living hostages could die, and deceased hostages might remain there with their fates unknown. Time is not on their side. All of them are humanitarian cases, and every family deserves to have their loved ones returned. We are grateful for every life saved and are hoping to see all 98 hostages home soon.”Yoav Engel, whose son, Ofir, was released from captivity in the November hostage deal, called on Netanyahu to “free [the families] from their suffering” and to make a deal for everyone.Former defense minister Yoav Gallant, at Hostages Square, said he supports the government’s push for the deal and said he hopes “that this time, the national interests will overcome the political ones.”He said the deal was correct; it meets the standard of a war goal that is “clear, moral, and militarily preferred.”Gallant quit the Knesset a few weeks ago, after being dismissed as defense minister, partly for his support of a full haredi (ultra-Orthodox) draft as the IDF death toll rose.“As an Israeli citizen, I am embarrassed” by political attempts to leverage power to push the deal off, he said. “This act is not Jewish, not Zionist and not human.”Netanyahu later met with representatives from the Tikva (Hope) Forum, which represents some families of hostages and has pushed for more military pressure as a means to bring the hostages home. Members of the Valor Forum, which represents hundreds of families of soldiers who fell during the Israel-Hamas War and has also pushed for more military pressure in Gaza, also joined the meeting.Ditza Or, whose son, Avinatan, is still held hostage, said, “We are demanding of the prime minister, do not concede to Hamas.“We demand a complete deal… a deal where everyone comes home on the same day. On the same bus. A deal carried out in stages is a deal that abandons the majority of the hostages to die.”Yehoshua Shani, whose son, Capt. Ori Shani, fell in battle on October 7, said, “We called on the prime minister to stop the deal at the last moment, unless the conditions of bringing home all the hostages and bringing down Hamas are part of the deal.”