Thousands of Israelis rallied in Tel Aviv on Saturday to demand urgent government action to bring home hostages held in Gaza, after the bodies of several were retrieved.
Protesters observed a minute’s silence in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square in honor of the captives whose bodies were recovered by Israeli troops this month, an AFP correspondent reported.
The army said on Friday that troops had retrieved the bodies of three hostages in an overnight operation in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip.
The remains of Chanan Yablonka, Brazilian-Israeli Michel Nisenbaum and French Mexican Orion Hernandez Radoux were recovered and their families notified after forensic identification, the military said in a statement.
“In just a few hours, I will bury my 42-year-old brother … I feared this moment,” Yablonka’s sister Avivit said at Saturday’s rally.
“My brother, I promise you that I will continue to shout, support, fight and do everything so that all the hostages return home safely.
“They must be taken out of this hell now,” she said.
The bodies of four other hostages — Ron Benjamin, Yitzhak Gelerenter, Shani Louk and Amit Buskila — were recovered last week.
Another protest, calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and an early election, was held nearby.
The latest eruption of war in the Middle East began on October 7 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 hostage. About 100 hostages remain in Gaza, including about 30 the army says are dead.
Israel has since responded with an air and land assault on Hamas-governed Gaza, which both sides agree has killed at least 30,000 people. Israel says the majority of the dead are combatants. The Hamas-run Health Ministry says 35,903 have died, the majority of them women and children, but it does not estimate how many of the dead were combatants. Nearly three-quarters of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is displaced. Nearly the entire population is at risk of famine, according to the U.N.
