Tens of thousands gathered Tuesday night in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square for a mass rally demanding the release of all hostages held by Hamas and an end to the war in Gaza.
Ofir Braslavski, whose son Rom has been held in Gaza for 690 days and recently appeared in a video from captivity, delivered an emotional plea. “My child — I see a picture of him dying here. There is no other way to describe it — dying,” he said. “These are horrors of the Holocaust. We see him tortured, suffering and a month has passed since the video and nothing has been done. I don’t want to get my child back in a bag.” Braslavski said his family had waited two years and lost faith in the government: “I no longer believe anyone.”
Michal Uziyahu, head of the Eshkol Regional Council near the Gaza border, told the crowd that her community had suffered unimaginable destruction on Oct. 7. “Since then we have lifted our heads. But in every step we take we know and feel — there is no recovery without the return of the hostages,” she said. She urged decision-makers to find a path forward. “It is hard, it requires compromise. Security is not only a military victory but also the triumph of the human spirit. We will continue, demand and not relent — until everyone comes home.”
Earlier in the day, demonstrators blocked traffic in Ra’anana and along Highway 2 near Ma’agan Michael and Atlit. Protesters burned tires near Modi’in before police cleared the roadblocks.
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Anti-government protesters burning tires near Modi’in
(Photo: AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
The protests drew criticism from Knesset Finance Committee Chairman Hanoch Milwidsky, who denounced the demonstrators as “thugs in the service of Hamas.” In a post on X, accompanied by footage of burning tires, he wrote: “They bury the hostages deep in the tunnels and try to discourage IDF soldiers during war. These are the Sicarii of 2025.”
The rally coincided with a brief meeting of the Security Cabinet in Jerusalem, which ended in less than three hours after reviewing plans for a potential occupation of Gaza City. Hundreds of people demonstrated outside the meeting, pressing the government to prioritize a hostage deal.