Thousands of Israelis demonstrated on Tuesday night at two separate rallies in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, respectively in favor and against the emerging ceasefire deal with Hamas.
According to the details of the agreement so far revealed, it would only secure the return to Israel of 33 hostages, dead and alive, in return for a 42-day ceasefire and the release of 1,300 Palestinian prisoners, including killers serving life sentences, as well as the return of hundreds of thousands of Gazans to the northern Gaza Strip. More hostages—Hamas has 98 of them, according to Israel—are to be released after the 42-day first phase of the ceasefire.
Israel’s Ministerial Committee on National Security Affairs, also known as the State Security Cabinet, and the broader cabinet are set to vote on the deal. Hamas has not yet given its final answer on it, either, according to Israeli media reports on Wednesday.
Tzvika Mor, whose son Eitan is among the captives, came to the Jerusalem rally after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who held meetings with several families of hostages.
Mor argued against the creation of different tiers of hostages in the framework of the deal. The benefits Hamas will draw from the first tier will incentivize it to hold on to the following ones, he said.
“I don’t understand how my son will return after the first wave of residents returning from the south to the north of the Gaza Strip, and humanitarian aid trucks, will strengthen Hamas,” he told Israel’s Channel 12 News.
“The selection my grandparents went through saved them from the Nazis,” Mor said, referencing how Nazis would let some Jews live while sending others to their deaths. “But the selection being made now could, God forbid, determine the fate of my son.”
Mor urged Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who oppose the deal, as well as “Likud ministers and Likud Knesset members to do everything to stop a deal that will result in us having 70 more Ron Arads,” referring to the Israeli Air Force navigator who fell captive in 1986 and has not been recovered since.
Smortich has criticized and opposed the deal publicly. Ben-Gvir went further, implying he would leave the government and calling on Smotrich to do the same, which would topple the government altogether.
Mor is a leader of the Tikva Forum for Families of Hostages, which comprises families that object to making concessions to Hamas that they argue would endanger other Israelis or encourage Hamas to carry out future abductions.
In Tel Aviv, thousands attended a rally co-organized by the Hostage and Missing Families Forum, a different group that has not stipulated such terms for a deal to retrieve the hostages. The Hostage and Missing Families Forum seeks an immediate deal as a matter of a moral duty, they say.
Eli Bibas, the father of hostage Yarden Bibas, spoke at the Tel Aviv rally, noting the passage of time since Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, abducted to Gaza his son, his daughter-in-law Shiri, and their sons, Ariel and Kfir, who were 4 years old and nine months old, respectively, when they were taken.
“I try to imagine him running to me and calling, ‘Grandpa Eli, a gift’,’ Eli Bibas said of Kfir, who recently had his second birthday in captivity. “Mr. Prime Minister, the past year symbolizes for us as a people a year of disunity, destruction. The nightmare that has become the reality of our lives in the past year must end.”
His family, whose redheaded children have become an icon of the campaign to free all hostages, is on the list of 33 hostages Israel has requested as part of the first phase, according to the Asharq Saudi news outlet. Since their abduction, there has been no indication as to whether they are alive or dead.
Former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant, whom Netanyahu fired in November citing trust issues, attended the Tel Aviv rally and endorsed its message.
“This deal is the right deal, it’s important to do it. I support the Israeli government in making this deal,” said Gallant. “I hope that national considerations will overcome political interests. The release of the hostages is a declared war goal. I am ashamed of what Smotrich and Ben Gvir are doing. It is not Zionist, not Jewish and not humane.”