Waving Israeli flags, with posters of hostages draped on their backs, families of Gaza hostages and thousands of their supporters walked through the foothills of Jerusalem and towards the residence of Israel\u2019s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government many of them blame for the fate of their loved ones. <\/p>\n
The march began five days ago in Tel Aviv as an effort to pressure Netanyahu and his government to prioritize the safe return of the nearly 240\u00a0people kidnapped by Hamas during its murderous October 7 attack on Israel. <\/p>\n
Freeing hostages should be at the top of the Israeli war cabinet\u2019s agenda, he said. \u201cRight now, in Netanyahu\u2019s current political situation, this could be a real victory for the state of Israel, for the people of Israel, and for Netanyahu personally,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
Winds\u00a0have been shifting against the prime minister as Israel\u2019s war in Gaza drags past its sixth week. Multiple opinion polls suggest national favor toward Netanyahu and his governing coalition is collapsing, despite\u00a0continued overwhelming support in Israel for\u00a0the war on Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that controls Gaza. <\/p>\n
Opposition parties initially rallied behind Israel\u2019s war effort, with National Unity Party leader Benny Gantz joining the wartime government \u00ad\u00ad\u2013 but cracks have begun to emerge. <\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the country\u2019s opposition leader Yair Lapid said it was time for the six-term prime minister to resign, and called for Netanyahu\u2019s Likud party to oust him. But\u00a0Lapid did not go as far as to call for new elections, saying instead that Likud should put forward an alternative leader. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot allow ourselves to have a prime minister who has lost the public\u2019s trust, whether from a social or a security point of view,\u201d Lapid told Israel\u2019s Channel 12. <\/p>\n
Israel, Hamas and the United States, with the Gulf state of Qatar acting as mediator, have been struggling to reach an agreement on a number of sticking points over a pause to allow for hostages to be released. <\/p>\n
Sticking points include how many days a potential pause in fighting would last, the number of hostages that would be released, and Hamas\u2019 demand that Israel stop flying surveillance drones over Gaza, according to several sources familiar with the talks. <\/p>\n
Gestures to relieve pressure on the besieged enclave\u2019s civilian population have already drawn the ire of Netanyahu\u2019s unruly governing cabinet \u2013 the most right-wing in Israel\u2019s history. <\/p>\n
After Israel\u2019s war cabinet on Friday approved two fuel tankers to enter Gaza per day to support water and sewage systems, far-right members of his governing coalition raged over what they saw as concessions to Hamas in the absence of a deal to release hostages. <\/p>\n
In a letter to Netanyahu posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the decision went against the views of the governing cabinet, which is separate to the war cabinet. <\/p>\n
His colleague, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, posted on social media around the same time saying that \u201cas long as our abductees (hostages) are not even visited by the Red Cross, there is no sense in giving the enemy \u2018humanitarian gifts,\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/strong>while calling it an insult to soldiers, the bereaved and families of the missing and kidnapped. <\/p>\n Netanyahu defended the decision in an address late Saturday, saying that the tankers are a minimal emergency amount to operate water and sewage pumps in Gaza, and denied there had been any change of policy. <\/p>\n He also said he had invited representatives of the hostages\u2019 families to a meeting with his war cabinet later this week. <\/p>\n Some families have demanded that the government should consider an \u201ceveryone for everyone deal,\u201d which was floated by Hamas.\u00a0Such a deal would involve exchanging the hostages for\u00a0all\u00a0<\/strong>Palestinians currently held in Israeli prisons \u2013 some 6,630 people, according to estimates by the Palestinian Prisoner\u2019s Society. <\/p>\n Though such a swap might cause concern in the current environment, a\u00a02011 prisoner exchange\u00a0saw kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit swapped for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. <\/p>\n Some\u00a0of those marching on Saturday\u00a0backed such a move. Asher Elyahol said he did not care how, or how much was needed to get the hostages returned. Freeing hostages from Hamas was worth it, \u201cwhatever the cost,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n \u201cYou cannot make differences between nationalities, woman and children or Israeli soldiers,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n The families of hostages have largely attempted to stay apolitical in their growing campaign, but many in the crowd on Saturday blamed Netanyahu for failing to anticipate Hamas\u2019 attack that led to the murder of 1,200 people. <\/p>\n The October 7 attack is seen by many as a breach of Netanyahu\u2019s security\u00a0contract with Israeli voters, after he spent years framing himself as the only person who could protect the country that has clashed with its neighbors for most of its existence. <\/p>\n While the search for Waiss\u00a0ended in tragedy, Dagan said there is still hope for other families to get their loved ones back. <\/p>\n In the aftermath of the tragedy, commentators accused Netanyahu of\u00a0a lack of empathy; Israel watchers say he spent more time at photo opportunities with troops near Gaza than apologizing for past failures. <\/p>\n Elyahol said he believed Netanyahu was not \u201cconnected to the people,\u201d adding that he hopes that when the war is over, and the hostages returned, \u201cwe\u2019ll also have a new government.\u201d <\/p>\n\n Waving Israeli flags, with posters of hostages draped on their backs, families of Gaza hostages and thousands of their supporters walked through the foothills of Jerusalem and towards the residence of Israel\u2019s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government many of them blame for the fate of their loved ones. The march began five days ago <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11814,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11813","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} Hostage negotiations<\/h2>\n
Blame falls on Netanyahu<\/h2>\n