Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities on Saturday, calling for an agreement to release around 100 hostages held by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.
“We must not sacrifice any more lives; we must not sacrifice them [the remaining hostages],” said a relative of a hostage who died last week, at the Tel Aviv rally.
Carmel Gat, another woman, and four men were shot at close range last week, according to Israel’s Health Ministry, after Israeli soldiers found their bodies last Sunday in a tunnel in Gaza.
“The six would be here with us today if [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] had agreed to a deal,” Gat’s relative called out to the crowd, with sorrow and anger in her voice.
On 7 October last year, militants from Hamas and other extremist Palestinian organisations invaded southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 people and taking around 250 others as hostages into Gaza, an unprecedented massacre that triggered the Gaza war.
According to Israel, Hamas is still holding 101 people, although it is unclear how many of them are still alive.
Indirect negotiations for their release, mediated by the US, Egypt, and Qatar, have been stalled for months.
