In the latest protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, thousands of Israeli demonstrators took to the streets on Saturday to demand new elections and the government's efforts to return hostages held in Gaza. demanded further action.
Protests continue as the war in Gaza enters its seventh month amid growing anger over the government's approach to the 133 Israeli hostages still held by the Islamic movement Hamas.
Surveys show that most Israelis blame Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the security failures that led to Iraq's devastating attack. Hamas fighters attack a community in southern Israel on October 7th..
Israel's longest-serving prime minister has repeatedly ruled out early elections, which opinion polls suggest he will lose, saying going to the polls in the middle of a war would only benefit Hamas. Ta.
“We are here to protest against this government that continues to hold us back every month. Before October 7th, after October 7th. We continued to spiral,” Tel Aviv March said Yaron Pickman, 58, who participated in the event.
Hamas-led militants captured 253 people and killed about 1,200 people in the October 7 attack, according to an Israeli tally. Some hostages were released during a ceasefire in November.But efforts to secure another deal appear to have stalled.
Prime Minister Netanyahu has vowed to continue Israeli military operations in Gaza, where local health authorities say more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed, until all the hostages are returned and Hamas is destroyed.
last week Attacks on Israel by waves of Iranian drones and missiles Public attention has shifted away from the conflict in Gaza, and for relatives of many of the remaining hostages there is a growing sense that time is running out.
“My mother is really strong. She keeps us together,” said her 85-year-old mother, Yocheved Lifshitz, who was among the hostages freed in November, but whose father, Oded, is still alive. said prisoner Sharone Lifshitz, 52.
“But as time goes on, the weight of what's happening – that people who could have returned it didn't – is falling more and more on her shoulders. And her hope is fading, too. ”
