Large crowds amassed late Friday and Saturday morning in Tel Aviv, blocking streets and the entrances of the army headquarters, for a flash protest urging the far-right government to take the initiative to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas, after Israeli soldiers killed three of them in Gaza. The three victims include Yotam Haim, who was abducted from Kfar Aza, Samer Talalka who was abducted from Nir Am, and Alon Shamriz, all of whom were kidnapped on October 7.
Families and supporters of hostages abducted during the Hamas-led Oct. 7 onslaught demonstrate outside the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv on December 15, 2023, calling for an agreement for the return of the hostages (Photo: Zo Haderech)
The demonstrators blocked traffic at the Kaplan Junction as they marched toward the army’s military headquarters, where they called for a new agreement to return the remaining hostages who were kidnapped. “Their time is running out! Bring them home now!” the crowd was heard chanting. “There is no victory until every last hostage is released!” and “Hostage deal now!” A hunger strike was announced by the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum at noon Saturday during a press conference held at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square
Amid police pressure, the Hadash national council had planned to convene this afternoon (Saturday) at Kafr Yasif in Western Galilee for a discussion of “challenges and action plans for the forces of peace, equality and democracy in the struggle against war and fascism.” Hadash-Ta’al MKs and Arab Higher Committee leading members will participate in the meeting.
During last month police threatened the event hall owner in the city of Shefa ‘Amr, who has been hosting Hadash council conventions for years, saying that if he hosts us his business will be shut down for 30 days.
According Amjad Shbita, Hadash Secretary General, “This political persecution is not random. The establishment understands that Hadash is among the last remaining political forces with the backbone, political courage and organizational capacity to lead protests against the war, against McCarthyism and against the turn to fascism that the establishment has accelerated under the heavy smokescreen of the war in Gaza.”
“The right wants to see Hadash outside the law, or at least outside the Knesset, not only out of anger at our political positions. It is using the current public atmosphere to advance one of the judicial coup’s strategic goals: a political transfer of Israel’s Arab citizens, or at least Hadash’s supposedly ‘extremist’ voters. The far right in power has a clear political interest in attacking Hadash: Our defeat would allow it to remain in power.”
Related: https://maki.org.il/en/?p=31422
