Protests held nationwide in Israel to release hostages as Oct. 7 anniversary draws near

Demonstrations were held across major Israeli cities demanding the government do more to accept a hostage release deal on Saturday night as the one-year anniversary of the October 7 terrorist attack draws near.

Protesters in Yafo Street in Jerusalem, Beersheba, Caesarea, and in Tel Aviv came out in large crowds once the three-day-long Rosh Hashanah-Shabbat break was finished.

There's an estimated one thousand protesters at the demonstration in the latter city. The smaller amount of protesters are likely due to rising tensions with Hezbollah and Iran, as well as adhering to Home Front Command guidelines. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum also announced that they were postponing their global solidarity event for the hostages a week later than originally planned on October 6th to the 13th. 

Families of hostages issued an official statement at the Kirya, stating that the "Israeli government is still doing nothing" on advancing a hostage release deal. Ila Metzger, the daughter-in-law of Yoram, who was murdered in captivity and whose body is being held by Hamas terrorists, criticized coalition ministers in a statement: "What have you done for the hostages in recent weeks? You abandoned them, neglected them, sacrificed them, and forgotten them. Citizens and soldiers are dying in tunnels under horrific conditions, underweight, without daylight, without food, without water - and the Israeli government does nothing to save them, the Israeli government does everything to keep them there," N12 quoted her as saying.

Other statements blaming the Israeli government

Hostages and Missing Families Forum also simultaneously issued a statement, saying, "There will be no victory or rehabilitation without the return of all the hostages home. We will not rest until each and every one of them returns home - the living for rehabilitation and the murdered for a proper burial in their own country. The State of Israel must act immediately, without delay," Walla quoted them. "The hostages do not have time for calm in the north. As we have unfortunately come to know - they not only suffer, they are also murdered."

"Every day in Hamas hell is an eternity in which the hostages are in immediate danger of death. How is it possible to know where every senior or junior member of Hezbollah is, but there is no idea where the hostages have been kept in Gaza for 365 days?"

Protesters were also seen in Tel Aviv holding signs saying, "One year, and they still aren't here!"

ZAKA spokesman Yisrael Hasid spoke at a rally for the hostages in the city of Carmi Kat, where he spoke about his organization's efforts to help Israeli civilians on October 7. About 2,000 were in attendance at the rally, according to KAN.

"Unfortunately, I know Kibbutz Nir Oz well since a year ago. In Nir Oz, I was exposed to horrific sights, the form of death, and the cruelty are unimaginable," he said. "I saw things that no one can describe. A year passed, a year came - and they are still there!

"I was in Nir Oz in the first two months of the massacre more times than I was at home."

Actress Alona Sa'ar, daughter of New Hope Party Leader Gideon Sa'ar, was in attendance of the protest against the government on Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv on Saturday night as well, Walla reported, only days after her father had joined the current government.