The protesters gathered outside army headquarters and other government buildings on Saturday, chanting slogans against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and urging him to reach a deal with the Palestinian group Hamas to ensure the return of about 100 captives still held in the war-battered strip.
Mass protests have been renewed in Israel in the past two weeks after the bodies of six captives were recovered from Gaza. An estimated 750,000 people attended last weekend’s rally.
Families of the captives who participated in Saturday’s rally said they are frustrated over the government’s failed negotiations to bring the captives home. Many blamed Netanyahu for not reaching a deal because they believe it will help him remain in power as long as the war lasts.
“This deal-sabotaging government is forsaking the captives and abandoning them to die,” said Yotam Cohen, the brother of Nimrod Cohen, an Israeli soldier held captive in Gaza.
“As long as Netanyahu is in power, this war will go on indefinitely and there will be no hostage deal. To save the hostages lives, Netanyahu must be replaced,” Cohen told The Associated Press news agency.
According to reports, the Israeli public has become increasingly frustrated with Netanyahu.
The uproar in Israel over the deaths of the six captives intensified after the Israeli military released a video of a Gaza tunnel where it said their bodies were found. The video shows a narrow passageway with no bathroom and poor ventilation.
Naama Weinberg, cousin of one of the killed captives Itay Svirsky, stated that the public was “horrified” by “the abysmal, inhuman conditions our hostages who are held in the Hamas tunnels are enduring”.
“They are dying, locked up in small unventilated cells, in tunnels deep underground with no air, malnourished, without seeing the light of day for 11 months,” Weinberg was quoted as saying by AP.
Hamas-led fighters killed over 1,200 people and took nearly 250 captive during their attacks in southern Israel on October 7. Israel’s war on Gaza has since killed more than 41,000 Palestinians and displaced almost its entire 2.3 million population.
