Over the weekend, a hunger striker joined a protest camp in front of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's private home in the coastal city of Caesarea. Another around-the-clock vigil — dubbed the “We're Out of Time” camp — occupies an intersection near his official residence in Jerusalem. Protesters poured a red liquid, symbolizing blood, on the crowded street on Monday night.
“My fingers are blue, but it's colder in those tunnels,” said Efrat Mashikava, blowing on her hands in the cold, rainy winter at the site on Tuesday. In front of six tents, others stood holding posters of those still detained by Hamas, including Machikava's uncle, Gadi Musa, 79.
“There has to be an agreement now,” she said of the prisoners spending their time in the dark under Gaza. “They are dying.”
At the beginning of their ordeal, many families felt torn between fear for their kidnapped relatives and support for Israel's fight against Hamas. But they say something changed last week as the country marked 100 days of war with no new momentum toward freeing their loved ones.
Some 132 hostages are still being held, although the Israeli Prime Minister's Office says it believes 28 of them have died – either from their wounds or at the hands of Hamas. In December, Israeli forces mistakenly killed three hostages in Gaza as they tried to escape, waving white flags and shouting in Hebrew. Hamas claimed, without evidence, that dozens of hostages were killed in Israeli raids.
In the early days of the war, Shahar Mor Zahiro, one of the protesters who disrupted the Knesset on Monday, said: “We could not attack the government because it was responsible for returning our loved ones.” His uncle Abraham Monder turned 79 in Gaza.
Now, “society is cracking,” Zahiro said. “A lot of families have taken the gloves off. We have nothing to lose anymore.”
For months, the families — on the advice of a volunteer army of Tel Aviv-based propagandists, strategists and graphic designers — organized large-scale demonstrations, met with officials and covered the country with posters of the hostages. Some, like Machikava, have traveled abroad to mobilize global awareness.
The campaign is credited with making the release of the hostages a major goal of the war, on par with the pledge to “destroy Hamas” made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other leaders immediately after the October 7 attacks.
One hundred and five prisoners, most of them women, children and foreign nationals, were released in late November as part of a humanitarian truce negotiated between Israel and Hamas. Since then, there has been no significant progress towards a new agreement.
Waiting for news, the families of those still inside were further traumatized by the testimonies that poured in from the released hostages – harrowing accounts of sleeping with corpses and sexual assault.
“I saw it with my own eyes,” former hostage Aviva Siegel told the Knesset on Tuesday, describing the sexual assault she said she witnessed in the tunnels. “Boys are also subjected to abuse, as are girls. …They are also puppets on a string.
The families' anger has become more urgent as Israel turns to a new phase of the war in Gaza, one that is expected to rely less on large-scale bombing and more on targeted raids, which is likely to last for months or even years. The transition period has opened new divisions over how long the fighting will last and how difficult it will be.
“There is a growing understanding that it may take much longer to dismantle Hamas, but the hostages do not have that long,” said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute.
For months, the families' demands have been basic – they want the government to free the hostages as quickly as possible. “Send them home now” is the most common slogan, and the name given by the largest group of relatives of the hostages.
But more families are now rallying around demanding an immediate ceasefire, which would open the way for a second deal to be negotiated with Hamas. Some have supported the controversial “all for all” deal, which would release the 8,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, some of whom are convicted of killing civilians, in exchange for the release of hostages.
Right-wing ministers in the Israeli government rejected the proposal, saying it would return potential fighters to Hamas and other militant groups.
The Israeli army has already begun withdrawing some of its forces from Gaza, where the ongoing offensive has killed more than 25,000 people, most of them women and children, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. At least 9,000 militants were killed, according to the Israeli army. Israeli officials say they have largely disabled Hamas as a military force in the northern part of the Strip, and are making progress in the south.
But military leaders insist that it was the fighting that brought Hamas to the negotiating table on the first release deal, and that the fighting will bring them back.
“This pressure, and it alone, succeeded in returning many hostages,” Chief of Staff General Herzi Halevy said in a speech marking the 100th anniversary of the war. He added, “The Hamas leadership is pinning its hopes on a ceasefire and is convinced that this moment is near.”
Netanyahu has repeatedly and publicly rejected the idea of halting the military offensive until Israel achieves what he calls “total victory” — “eliminating Hamas, returning all of our hostages, and ensuring that Gaza will never again pose a threat to Israel.”
But in private, he has shown more flexibility, according to a person who works closely with hostage families. Netanyahu told family representatives at a meeting on Monday that Israel had presented a new hostage deal proposal to mediators, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the informal meeting. He said that Netanyahu did not describe the details of the offer other than to say that it would require Israel to “give as it takes.”
The Prime Minister's Office did not respond to a request for comment. The hostage families said they had learned to be skeptical.
“Our prime minister has spoken a lot over the past 109 days, but he has not done anything,” Machikava said, standing in front of the new camp. Organizers say they will continue to pursue Netanyahu until the hostages return to their homeland.
Itay Stern in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.
