Tens of thousands of Israelis took to the streets this Saturday in several cities across the country against the Government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom they asked to resign and reach an agreement for the release of hostages from the Gaza Strip. These are the largest protests to date since the war began, according to local media.
The demonstrations, in cities such as Tel Aviv, Haifa, Caesarea and Jerusalem, are preceded by a week of protests, with violent altercations, injured citizens and the use of water cannons by law enforcement. In Tel Aviv, police evicted several protesters and detained three of them after they temporarily blocked King George Street, among others. According to the agents, some protesters had a violent attitude against the security forces, while they deny it and assure that it was the police who adopted violent methods to disperse the crowd.
In the renamed Democracy Square in Tel Aviv, also the scene of the massive protests against judicial reform, protesters listened this Saturday to relatives of the hostages in front of the Ministry of Defense, at the Kirya military base.
Yifat Calderón, cousin of hostage Ofer Calderón, 53, wondered how it is possible that the Israeli Government considers it plausible to declare the military defeat of Hamas in the coming weeks, if the hostages remain captive. “How can they claim victory when the hostages are still in their (Hamas) power?” Calderón asked, according to local media.
Dani Elgarat, brother of captive Itzik Elgarat, accused Netanyahu since the march in Tel Aviv of putting his political survival and personal benefit before the lives of the 116 hostages. “You choose to sacrifice the lives of our loved ones for your political survival. Soon, you will know us all because we will all become families mourning hostages,” Elgarat said, according to the Haaretz newspaper, referring to the recent meeting that the prime minister had with some families.
In the north, near Netanyahu’s second residence in Caesarea, hundreds of protesters have accused the prime minister of being guilty of the lack of protection suffered by citizens near Gaza and for having abandoned them afterwards, and demanded early elections.
Some protesters carried balloons with the number 20 and signs with the face of the hostage and soldier at an observation post near Gaza Naama Levy, who is still in captivity and turns 20 today.
More than eight and a half months after the Hamas attack on October 7, 116 Israeli hostages remain in captivity and, of them, US intelligence estimates that only about 50 are still alive, as revealed a few days ago by The Wall Street Journal. .
A single truce deal reached in November saw the release of 105 hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.
On June 8, Israeli forces, after having recovered seven lifeless bodies from Gaza in recent weeks, released four live hostages in a rescue operation that caused the death of some 270 Gazans. During the last hours Israel has killed more than 150 people in Gaza. The number of fatalities killed by Israeli forces since October 7 exceeds 35,000.
DM with information from the EFE agency and elDiario.es
