Thousands of people demonstrated in Tel Aviv for a ceasefire agreement and the release of hostages

Several demonstrators clashed with police, who used water cannons against them. Some protestors accused the police of disproportionate intervention, The Times of Israel (ToI) reported on Tuesday.

The demonstration was also attended by relatives of people kidnapped by Hamas last October 7 during the attack on Israel, during which 1,200 people were killed. Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has claimed over 34,000 Palestinian lives, according to Hamas-controlled authorities.

The hostages that Hamas released at the end of November during the so far only truce in this war also came to Monday’s demonstration. Hamas is still holding 130 hostages, of whom apparently several dozen have already died in captivity.

Israel is preparing to evacuate civilians ahead of at least a six-week operation in Rafah

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Participants in Monday’s demonstration also reached the headquarters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, where several people clashed with the police.

She used a water cannon and arrested five people, according to ToI. Police say they prevented a group of demonstrators from illegally protesting and trying to get to Likud headquarters.

Demonstrators also lit a fire in front of Israeli army headquarters in Tel Aviv, carrying a banner reading “Rafah can wait, hostages can’t”.

They were referring to the planned military action in Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip, where over a million Palestinians fled before the fighting and where the army wants to start a ground operation. The area is already shelling, although not as intensively as other parts of the Gaza Strip, which are already devastated by the war.

Demonstrations for an agreement with Hamas and the release of hostages are held regularly in Israel, and in recent days they have apparently intensified because Hamas has published videos of several hostages.

Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg, CTK/AP

Thousands of people demonstrated in Tel Aviv in the evening for a ceasefire agreement in Gaza and the release of hostages

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in the Middle East again this week, he held talks in Saudi Arabia on Monday, he will be in Jordan today and then he is scheduled to fly to Israel.

The United States, along with Egypt and Qatar, are brokering a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas.

On Monday, Reuters reported that the latest proposal included Israel’s willingness to agree in the first phase to the release of fewer than 40 hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and in the second phase to a cease-fire with a “permanent period of calm”.

This is Israel’s compromise response to the demand of Hamas, which has long demanded a permanent ceasefire. After the first phase, Israel would allow the free movement of people between the southern and northern parts of the Gaza Strip and would also partially withdraw its troops from the Gaza Strip, the Reuters source added.

The mother of one of those kidnapped at the demonstration also called on Netanyahu to choose between rescuing the hostages and staying in power.

Hamas steps up blackmail. He is an obstacle to the ceasefire, it sounds from the US

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His coalition cabinet also includes far-right ministers who are against the agreement to release the hostages at the price of a ceasefire and demand the continuation of the war until the complete destruction of Hamas.

Relatives of the two hostages who appeared in a video released by Hamas over the weekend also held a press conference on Monday.

“I’m asking everyone (politicians) to stop talking and start acting,” said the daughter of 64-year-old Keith Siegel, who was kidnapped by Palestinian gunmen on October 7 along with about 250 other people.

On the other hand, a group of relatives of soldiers who died in this war threatened to go on hunger strike on Monday if the Israeli army does not start an operation in Rafah.

“We don’t want our sons to die needlessly,” said one parent whose son died in Gaza in early December. He added that the war must not end other than with the complete destruction of Hamas and the release of the hostages.