Particularly important demonstration Sunday evening
Branding photos of hostages, drum sounds and slogans calling for the return of Israeli captives, tens of thousands of people, up to 500,000 according to the organizers, took the streets Tel Aviv on Sunday to ask for the end of the war in Gaza.
“We are here to make the Israeli government understand very clearly that it is probably the last chance that we have to save the hostages detained in Hamas tunnels for almost 700 days,” said Ofir Penso, 50, a Arab teacher.
Demonstrations were organized regularly during the 22 months of war launched in the Gaza Strip by the unprecedented attack of Hamas against Israel on October 7, 2023. But this Sunday’s rally appears to be one of the most massive to date.
An announcement that amplified anger. The mobilization was organized after the decision of the government of Benyamin Netanyahu, just over a week ago, to launch a new offensive against Hamas in the Palestinian territory, and to take it from the city of Gaza and the neighboring camps.
In the streets. This Sunday evening in the crowd, many wore pieces of adhesive tape on their shirts with the number 681 written to the marker, representing the number of days since the hostages were removed. Translating the streets of the city center, in the shade of the glass towers, the crowd converged on the “Place des Otages” of Tel Aviv-the nervous center of the movement.
“The Israeli government has never proposed a sincere initiative for a global agreement and the end of the war,” accuses Einav Tzangauker, whose Matan son is detained in Gaza, addressing the crowd. “We are asking for a complete and achievable agreement as well as the end of the war. We ask for what is up to us – our children. ”
Other fears. Beyond the fate of the hostages – another 49 captives in Gaza, including 27 declared dead by the army – other concerns are expressed in the crowd.
“The whole country is tearing itself apart, our image in the world has completely changed, it is worse than ever, and that’s enough,” says Nick, a 31 -year -old tech worker, asking not to give his family name. Others are concerned about the fate of their own children enlisted in the Israeli army, and fear that they are soon recalled to fight.