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Hundreds of thousands of Israelis rallied in central Tel Aviv at the end of a day of national protests demanding their government agree a deal to free hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
Sunday’s demonstrations, organised by groups representing families of the hostages, came a week after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced plans to intensify Israel’s offensive in Gaza, despite warnings from the military that it would endanger the hostages’ lives.
There has also been intense international condemnation of Netanyahu’s plans to escalate Israel’s devastating 22-month offensive, which has caused a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and brought the Palestinian enclave to the brink of famine.
Organisers said around 500,000 people took part in the main protest in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square on Sunday evening, making it one of the largest demonstrations in Israel in the past year.
The rally in Israel’s business capital capped a day of protest, with organisers calling a nationwide strike, holding marches and blocking roads in locations across the country. Protesters set fire to tyres on some streets in an effort to stop traffic.
Police deployed water cannon and officers on horseback to disperse groups blocking roads, with dozens arrested.
However, Israel’s biggest union, Histadrut, did not join the strike and in other parts of the country the “day of stoppage” appeared to be having a more limited impact. In Jerusalem most businesses remained open, and the main shopping streets in the city centre were full of people.
The strike came as Israel’s statistics bureau said economic output fell at an annualised rate of 3.5 per cent in the second quarter of this year, driven by the impact of the June war with Iran.
Since the start of the Gaza war nearly two years ago there have been a string of protests aimed at putting pressure on Netanyahu’s far-right government to agree a deal to bring home the hostages and end the fighting.
The protests and strikes have so far had little impact, with Netanyahu repeatedly insisting he will not end the war before Hamas has been destroyed, arguing that this is the best way to secure the hostages’ release.
In a statement issued by his office on Sunday, Netanyahu said those calling for an end to the war were “hardening Hamas’s position and delaying the release of the hostages”.
“Both to promote the release of our hostages and to ensure that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel, we must complete the task and defeat Hamas,” he said.
However, the prime minister’s argument was dismissed by protesters, with Arbel Yehoud — a hostage released during a brief ceasefire earlier this year — saying at a demonstration in Tel Aviv that a deal was the only way to bring all the remaining hostages home.
“Military pressure doesn’t bring back hostages — it only kills them,” she said.
Israel’s assault on Gaza has so far resulted in the death of more than 61,500 people, according to local officials, and reduced most of the enclave to uninhabitable rubble.
Last week, Netanyahu ordered the military to draw up a plan to take over Gaza City, and to once again force the tens of thousands of Palestinians sheltering there to evacuate. The order prompted denunciations from numerous allies, including Germany, Canada and the UK, as well as a host of Arab states.
Israel launched its offensive in response to Hamas’s October 7 2023 attack on southern Israel, during which militants killed 1,200 people and took a further 250 hostage, according to Israeli officials.
