Israelis rally against Netanyahu as Gaza war reaches half-year mark

Organisers say 100,000 Israelis protested against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the war against Hamas in Gaza reaches its half-year mark.

Protesters light a fire and hold flame torches during a demonstration calling for a hostages deal and against the Israeli government on April 6. Picture: Getty Images

Hundreds of thousands of Israelis protested against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu across the weekend as Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza reached its half-year mark.

Organisers said about 100,000 people converged on Saturday at a Tel Aviv crossroads renamed Democracy Square since mass protests against controversial ­judicial reforms last year.

Chanting “elections now”, tens of thousands more took to the streets again on Sunday, calling for Mr Netanyahu’s resignation as the war in Gaza ­entered its seventh month.

The protesters were later joined by families of Gaza hostages and their supporters as the Israeli army announced its troops had ­recovered the body of a hostage abducted by Palestinian militants during the October 7 attack and later murdered in captivity in the Gaza Strip.

The recovery of Elad Katzir’s body brought to 12 the number of bodies of hostages the army says it has brought home from Gaza during the war.

The army said “the body of the abductee Elad Katzir, who ­according to intelligence was murdered in captivity by the Islamic Jihad terrorist organisation, was rescued overnight from Khan Yunis and returned to Israeli territory”.

Mr Katzir, 47 at the time of ­the attack, was abducted from Nir Oz kibbutz community along with his mother, Hanna. She was released on November 24 during a one-week truce in the war in Gaza. Mr Katzir’s father was killed during the attack at the kibbutz, the army said.

It said its intelligence suggested Mr Katzir was murdered in mid-January, shortly after Islamic Jihad released video footage showing him in captivity.

“He was buried in the ground,” a military official said at a briefing.

Following intelligence, troops reached the site and “began excavation” work to recover his body.

Killed hostage Elad Katzir, 47

Mr Katzir’s sister, Carmit Palty Katzir, was furious with authorities.

“Elad was kidnapped from his home in Nir Oz in one piece,” she wrote on her Facebook page.

She said he would have returned alive had the authorities agreed to a new truce deal.

“Our leadership is cowardly and driven by political consideration, which is why this deal has not happened yet,” she wrote.

“Prime Minister, war cabinet, and coalition members: Look at yourself in the mirror and say if your hands didn’t spill blood.”

Campaign group The Hostages Families Forum said Mr Katzir had been held alive for three months following his abduction.

During these months “signs of life and reports about his condition reached Israel”, it said in a statement.

“Three months in which there was a possibility to save him and ­return him alive to his family and his country.”

Later on Saturday, in a separate statement released at a rally in Tel Aviv, the families of hostages again slammed the authorities for their handling of the hostage issue.

“For six months we have been in a nightmare that began on that cursed Saturday at 6.29am, an ongoing nightmare that only gets worse from moment to moment,” said Esther Buchshtab, mother of hostage Yagev Buchshtab.

“We demand that the state do everything to reach a deal, to bring back the living for rehabilitation and the murdered for burial.”

The comments reflect intensifying pressure on Mr Netanyahu’s coalition government over its handling of the war.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid was one of the thousands taking part in other protests across Israel, ­including in Kfar Saba, north of Tel Aviv.

Demonstrators in Tel Aviv hold placards during a protest calling for the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza since the October 7 attacks by Hamas militants. Picture: AFP

“They haven’t learnt anything, they haven’t changed,” he said at that rally. “Until we send them home, they won’t give this country a chance to move forward.”

Mr Lapid will be in Washington this week and is expected to meet Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, amid deepening frustration with Mr Netanyahu in the Biden administration.

Negotiators were also expected in Cairo on Sunday for a ­renewed push to strike a ceasefire-hostage deal. Stop-start talks have made no headway since the ­November truce saw the exchange of some hostages for Palestinian prisoners detained by Israel.

Ahead of the talks Hamas confirmed its core demands – a complete ceasefire in Gaza and withdrawal of Israeli forces.

Washington blames the lack of a deal on Hamas’s refusal to ­release sick and other vulnerable hostages. Qatar has said Israeli ­objections to the return of displaced Gazans are the main obstacle.

President Joe Biden is under pressure over massive US military aid to Israel that, so far, Washington has not leveraged despite increasingly critical comments about Israel’s conduct of the war.

The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of about 1200 people in southern Israel, most of them civilians, according to Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas has killed at least 33,137 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

About 250 Israelis and foreigners were taken hostage by militants on October 7. The army says 129 are still being held in Gaza, including 34 who are presumed dead.

AFP