Families beg Israeli government to bring home hostages held in Gaza for 100 days

The families of hostages held in the Gaza Strip kicked off a 24-hour rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday night, calling on the government to bring their loved ones home after 100 days spent in Hamas captivity. Thousands of people poured into “Hostages Square” in Tel Aviv — a central plaza opposite Israel’s Defense Ministry that has served as a gathering point for the campaigners. Hamas and other Gaza militants captured about 250 people during a deadly Oct.

7 attack on southern Israel. About 1,200 other people were killed, most of them civilians, according to Israel. More than 100 hostages were released during a temporary truce in November, but 132 remain held in Gaza including the remains of about two dozen who died or were killed.

“We were here on day 50 and spoke on this stage. We are not going to speak again in 50 days. It’s time to bring them back.

Now! Bring them back!,” said Ronen Neutra, the father of Omer Neutra, an Israeli soldier who was taken. “They are being held in terrible conditions. They are starving.

They are dying. ” Many of the protesters planned to stay out all night. The crowd listened to a recorded message from French President Emmanuel Macron, and heard from the U.

S. ambassador to Israel, Jacob Lew. Lew and Macron pledged to exhaust every effort to bring the remaining hostages home.

“Today, as we mark 100 days since hundreds of innocent men, women and children were violently seized from Israel, we join as one in demanding their release,” Lew said. In previous exchanges of hostages for Palestinian prisoners, nearly all freed on both sides were women and minors. Now, 111 men, 19 women and two children remain in Gaza.

The Red Cross hasn’t been permitted to see them, and almost nothing is known about their conditions. There has been little visible progress toward a new deal to release hostages. Their families are using the 100-day mark for a new appeal to the government to prioritize bringing home the abductees.

Some have said the government has not done enough. Israel said Saturday that it brokered a deal with mediator Qatar to deliver much-needed medicines to the hostages with the help of the International Committee of the Red Cross. There was no immediate sign the deal was being implemented.

One mother’s ritual Every morning, before she’s even out of her pajamas, Rachel Goldberg-Polin tears a piece of masking tape off the roll, grabs a marking pen and in thick black strokes writes down the number of days her son, Hersh, has been held hostage by Hamas militants. Then she sticks the tape to her chest. “I find it so remarkable how nauseating it is every single time,’’ she said.

“And it’s good. I don’t want to get used to it. I don’t want anybody to get used to the fact that these people are missing.

’’ Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, was last seen Oct. 7, when militants loaded him into the back of a pickup truck with other people who were abducted from a southern Israel music festival where over 300 attendees were killed. The native of Berkeley, California, lost part of an arm when the attackers tossed grenades into the shelter where a group of young people had taken refuge.

Rachel Goldberg-Polin, 54, now spends her days trying to bring him and the other hostages home. The mother of three spent the past three months crisscrossing the globe, reminding anyone who will listen that her child is more than just an inconvenient statistic: He is her only son, a music lover, a young man who deserves the chance to fulfill his dreams. Goldberg-Polin and her family, who moved to Israel from the United States when Hersh was 7, have met with U.

S. President Joe Biden, Pope Francis, Elon Musk and dozens of journalists. She’s spoken at the United Nations, gone to protests and carried placards.

The plight of the hostages and their families’ tireless campaign gained widespread support and sympathy, ratcheting up pressure on the Israeli government to make concessions to win their release. The Goldberg-Polin family planned to attend the start of the rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday and another Sunday on the Jerusalem Promenade. Similar events are scheduled in cities outside Israel, including London, New York and Paris.

But so far, nothing stopped the number on the masking tape from going up. Ahead of the 100-day milestone, Goldberg-Polin asked people around the world to adopt her routine Sunday, hoping the show of solidarity would help her and the other families bear the pain and anguish of waiting yet another day for their loved ones to return. Her masking tape badge was inspired by childhood memories from 1979, when America was transfixed by the fate of 52 people held hostage at the U.

S. Embassy in Iran. ABC News opened its coverage every night with a running count of how many days the crisis had lasted.

The hostages were finally released after 444 days. The ritual began on Day 26, when Goldberg-Polin stuck the makeshift badge to her chest to show everyone the ever-increasing tally was the focus of her life, not just a factoid for news stories. “It defines me anyway,” she said Wednesday, when her badge read 96.

She likened it to a name tag, in the fashion of “Hello my name is. ” “This is who I am,” she said. “My identity is the number of days he’s been stolen.

″.