A smaller group of anti-government protesters defied the crackdown on anti-war voices and demanded a ceasefire.
Thousands of people demonstrated in Tel Aviv demanding the release of Israeli and foreign prisoners held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and criticized the Israeli government for the way it is handling the crisis.
Many of the protesters on Saturday were friends and family members of the captives and demanded their immediate return.
“Mr. Prime Minister, members of the Council of Ministers, do not talk to me about the invasion, do not talk to me about flattening [Gaza]. Don’t talk at all. Just take action… bring them home now,” Noam Peri, whose father was kidnapped from the town of Nir Oz, told the crowd at the protest, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.
“They ask us who our anger is directed at, which is all of humanity… but mainly, those who are responsible for us, those who have a contract with us,” said Jack Levy, another protester.
More than 240 people, including Israeli and foreign soldiers and civilians, were kidnapped during an attack on southern Israel on October 7, which authorities say killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians.
A few hundred left-wing Israeli activists, both Arab and Jewish, held a separate demonstration near the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, demanding a ceasefire despite an ongoing crackdown on anti-war votes and protests.
Demands for a ceasefire are increasing from citizens around the world as well as from world leaders.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the idea of any ceasefire “without the return of our hostages.” The United States instead called for a “humanitarian truce” to allow civilians to flee and aid delivery.
More than 11,000 Palestinians, including more than 4,500 children, have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched a campaign of air strikes on October 7, followed by a devastating ground offensive that took the fighting to some of Gaza City’s main hospitals.
In statements on Saturday, Netanyahu ruled out that the Palestinian Authority government in Gaza would have a role after the end of the war against Hamas.
“There has to be something else there,” he said when asked whether the Palestinian Authority, which has partial administrative control in the occupied West Bank, might rule Gaza after the war.
Netanyahu said: “There will be no civil authority that teaches its children to hate Israel, kill Israelis, and eliminate the State of Israel.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last month that the Palestinian Authority must regain control of the Gaza Strip from Hamas, with international players potentially playing a role in the meantime.
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