Thousands of protesters flooded streets in cities across Israel on Sunday night to demand that the government immediately accept a deal for the release of hostages held in Gaza, staging one of the largest demonstrations the country has seen in months after the Israeli military announced the recovery of six dead hostages.
In Tel Aviv, hostage families and a crowd of supporters carried six prop coffins in a march through the city, blocked its main highway and swarmed in front of the Israeli military headquarters. In Jerusalem, the Israeli police used water cannons to spray skunk water, a noxious crowd control weapon, and forcefully removed people who rallied in front of the city’s main entrance.
Protesters gathered in smaller cities, too, including in Haifa and Beer Sheva, Israeli media outlets reported. In Rehovot, in central Israel, people blocked traffic and chanted, “We want them back living, not in coffins!”
The families of many hostages have long accused the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, of sabotaging efforts for a deal for his own political gain. They have taken increasingly aggressive steps to try to pressure him into action, including protesting in front of his Jerusalem home and storming a Parliament meeting.
The families’ frustration appeared to reach a boiling point on Sunday after the Israeli military said that six hostages had been found dead.
Their blood was on the hands of the Israeli government, said the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a group that represents some of the relatives, and it called on the public to “bring the nation to a halt.”
The message was echoed by Israel’s largest labor union, which declared a strike beginning Monday morning, and by Yair Lapid, the Israeli opposition leader.
The Families Forum said hundreds of thousands of people were protesting around the country on Sunday evening, but it was not possible to verify the figure. The Israeli police, which said that five people had been arrested during the protests in Jerusalem, declined to provide any estimates of crowd sizes.
Several family members of the hostages directed their anger squarely at Mr. Netanyahu as they agitated for public action.
“Whoever accepts the murder of civilians for the Prime Minister should stay home,” Gil Dickmann, whose cousin Carmel Gat was one of the hostages found dead over the weekend, said on the social media platform X. “Those who don’t: in memory of Carmel, take to the streets — stop the abandonment, bring the state to a halt, get a deal.”
Jonathan Dekel-Chen, whose son Sagui is still held in Gaza, said in an interview that Mr. Netanyahu was “not only endangering our national security by refusing to complete this negotiated settlement, he’s also tearing apart this country by its seams. The country is aware that this government doesn’t exist for the service of the country but the service of itself.”
Supporters expressed a mix of grief and rage at demonstrations on Sunday night, many toting photos of the hostages and waving yellow ribbons in solidarity.
Shiraz Angert, a 23-year-old design student who was protesting in Jerusalem on Sunday, wore a shirt bearing the photo of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, one of the hostages whose bodies were recovered on Saturday. “It was possible to save them in a deal,” she said. “These are people who were sacrificed because we didn’t do enough.”
In Tel Aviv, Dan Levinson, a 59-year-old high school teacher, said he hoped the night’s protest would be a watershed moment.
“I feel that tonight is the last chance for a turning point — people out in the streets tonight understand that what we have not been able to achieve so far into the war, we will not be able to ever reach unless a decision is made,” he said.
“If it does not happen now,” he added, “it never will.”
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