Several thousand people demonstrated in Tel Aviv on Saturday evening in favor of a negotiated solution for the release of Israeli hostages held by the militant Islamist group Hamas.
There was also loud criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and calls for new elections.
Protesters held banners and signs aloft reading “Negotiate now, resign later.”
The father of one of the Israeli hostages criticized that the government’s own survival seemed more important than the hostages. I have called on the government to agree to a ceasefire in exchange for the return of the hostages.
Israeli telvision broadcaster Kan, citing a government representative, reported that Israel is not sending a team to the negotiations in Cairo for the time being.
Israel will only send a delegation to Egypt once Hamas has responded to the proposal for an agreement, according to the report.
“Netanyahu is once again trying to torpedo the only chance we have to save the hostages,” a statement from the hostages’ relatives said.
An Israeli offensive in the city of Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip would be a “death sentence” for the hostages, emphasized the brother of a man held in Gaza.
Netanyahu could not remain Prime Minister “with the blood of 132 hostages on his hands.”
Opposition leader Yair Lapid said that the government should send a negotiating team to Cairo that very night “and tell them not to return without a deal.”
