Thousands of protesters gathered in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on Saturday night to demand the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, shortly after the terror group’s military wing claimed that a female captive had recently been killed in the northern Gaza Strip, with the Israel Defense Forces saying it could neither confirm nor deny this.
In a statement issued on Telegram on Saturday evening, a spokesman for the al-Qassam Brigades claimed that “one of the enemy’s female prisoners was killed in an area that is under Zionist aggression in the northern Gaza Strip, while the danger still threatens the life of another female prisoner who was with her.”
Alongside the statement, Hamas published a blurred picture of a body it claimed belonged to the slain hostage. It did not identify the woman.
The IDF said in response that it was “checking the information” but added that “at this stage, we are unable to verify or refute it.”
“IDF representatives are in contact with her family and are updating them with all the information available to us,” the military said, adding that “Hamas continues to use psychological terror and behave in a brutal manner.”
Hamas has made similar claims in the past regarding hostages. In some cases, the assertions were proved correct, such as in the case of Alex Dancyg, 75, and Yagev Buchshtav, 35, whom Hamas had announced in March had been killed, with their deaths confirmed months later.
Hamas Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades’ spokesperson Abu Obeida in a speech marking the one-year anniversary of the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. (video screenshot)
Conversely, in an incident last November, Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed that Hanna Katzir, who had been abducted from her home in Kibbutz Nir Oz, had been killed in an Israeli airstrike. Days later, however, Katzir was released alive on the first day of a week-long temporary ceasefire deal.
Hamas also claimed last November that Shiri Bibas and her two children, Ariel and Kfir, abducted at just four years old and 9 months old respectively, had been killed in captivity. The IDF has said this cannot be confirmed, and their fate remains unknown.
‘Too many parents who have lost their children’
Ahead of the start of the weekly protests, rally organizers said they would focus this week on the dangers to the hostages’ health as they begin their second winter in Hamas captivity. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum’s health team estimated in an assessment earlier this month that some of the remaining hostages had likely lost around half of their body weight.
The central rally at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square featured speeches from the families of several captives — including Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg-Polin, the parents of slain Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin — while on nearby Begin Road, Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, delivered a fiery address to anti-government protesters.
Protesters carried Israeli national flags and held photos of the 97 hostages kidnapped during Hamas’s brutal massacre on October 7 last year who are believed to be held in Gaza. Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai stood among the audience as he listened to the speeches of the hostage relatives.
Standing on the stage at Hostages Square with a large illustration of Hersh on the screen behind them, Polin and Goldberg-Polin vowed to the other hostage families that they would stick with them until their loved ones returned.
In twin sermons in English and Hebrew, the two spoke about the weekly Torah portion, Chayei Sarah (The Life of Sarah), in which the eponymous matriarch dies at the age of 127. As the hundreds-strong crowd listened, entranced, Polin described the new widower, Abraham, at 137: With one son childless and the other estranged, he is a far cry from God’s promise that he will beget a great nation.
Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg-Polin, whose son Hersh Goldberg-Polin was murdered by Hamas terrorists in Gaza after being kidnapped on October 7, 2023, address a rally calling for the release of Israelis still held by Hamas, Tel Aviv, November 23, 2024. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)
“Does Abraham expect miracles? No. He proceeds to act,” Polin continued, recounting how, according to the Torah portion, Abraham bought a gravesite and sent his manservant to find a wife for his son Isaac.
“I call on all decision-makers: be like Abraham in the weekly Torah portion,” said Polin. “Focus on the most important mission. Bring the hostages home. Don’t accuse, don’t point fingers. Be human beings.”
Goldberg-Polin, in English, noted that the traditional opinion of “our biblical commentators” was that Sarah died when she heard her only son Isaac had been sacrificed. Yet despite Sarah’s death, she noted, the Torah portion is named The Life of Sarah, as even in death, the values and beliefs of the deceased, live on.
A silence swept over the crowd as Goldberg-Polin spoke.
“We have lost too many cherished souls,” she said. “There are too many parents like us who have lost their children.”
Addressing the hostages, she said: “Everyone here loves you.”
“Stay strong. Survive,” she added, repeating the mantra that she had said to Hersh hundreds of times throughout his captivity, and until his death in late August.
‘Bring them home from hell’
Nearby, at the anti-government protest outside the Begin Road entrance to the Kirya military headquarters, Einav Zangauker charged that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “needs the war to continue so he can avoid trial.”
The prime minister is due to begin giving testimony at his criminal trial in early December after a court denied his request to delay it due to the multifront conflict.
“The price is paid by 101 kidnapped people,” Zangauker said. (In addition to the 97 people abducted in the October 7 assault, Hamas is believed to have been holding two civilians and the bodies of two dead IDF soldiers for around a decade.)
Yifat Calderon, cousin of hostage Ofer Calderon, holds his photo at a protest on Begin Road, Tel Aviv, November 23, 2024. (Zohar Bar-Yehuda/Pro-Democracy Protest Movement)
“We have a prime minister who has failed to bring my son home for over a year, and has left 100 other hostages to rot and be raped by Hamas terrorists,” she said, according to the Ynet news site. “But the second his spokesman is arrested for leaking classified documents to foreign media, jeopardizing intelligence sources, he comes to his defense.”
Netanyahu’s unofficial spokesman Eli Feldstein was charged on Thursday with transferring classified information with the intent to harm the state, for allegedly leaking a document to a German newspaper.
“Netanyahu doesn’t care about his citizens who are in Hamas captivity,” Zangauker continued, “and he doesn’t care about the soldiers who fall in battle. He only cares about his government.”
Yifat Calderon, whose cousin Ofer Calderon has been held in Gaza for 414 days, told the protesters that the $5 million reward announced by Netanyahu earlier this week for anyone who can assist in the release of hostages was in fact “endangering the captives’ lives” by instigating a “gang war at their expense.”
She called on the government to secure a single-phase deal to free all of the hostages, including the bodies of at least 36 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Smaller protests were held up and down the country alongside the Tel Aviv rallies, including in Rehovot, Beersheba, Modi’in, Haifa and Jerusalem.
Protesters marched through the streets of the capital, some banging drums and others holding signs reading, “The war is over. Bring them home!” and, “Bring them home from hell.”
Former defense minister Moshe Ya’alon addresses a demonstration at the Hemed interchange near Jerusalem, calling for early elections and for the government to close a deal to free hostages held in Gaza for over a year, November 23, 2024. (Pro-Democracy Movement/Tali Hill)
At the Hemed Interchange near Jerusalem, former defense minister Moshe Ya’alon joined the rally, addressing demonstrators from next to a sign that read, “Starting over. Elections now!”
At Karkur Junction in the Sharon region, anti-government protesters said one activist had been detained for blocking the road, while in Tel Aviv, a group that provides legal representation to anti-government protesters said one person was detained while demonstrating outside the home of far-right Negev and Galilee Minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf.
Footage on social media showed some 50 people outside the minister’s building, with police pushing some protesters behind a safety perimeter.
Some 1,200 people were killed and 251 were seized as hostages on October 7 last year, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists poured through the Gaza border into Israel and rampaged through dozens of southern communities.
The claim of a female hostage having been killed comes on the eve of the anniversary of the first and only hostage release deal to date, during which 105 civilians were released between November 24 and December 1, 2023.
Four hostages were released prior to the deal, and eight have been rescued by troops alive. The bodies of 37 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
