Israelis protest in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem to demand prisoner swap deal with Palestinians

By Abdelraouf Arnaout

JERUSALEM (AA) – Scores of Israelis staged protests in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on Thursday to demand an agreement with Palestinians to release Israeli captives in the Gaza Strip.

The protests were held as an Israeli negotiating team is set to travel to Qatar on Thursday to attend a new round of Gaza cease-fire and hostage swap talks.

Protesters, including families of the hostages, accused the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of abandoning Israeli captives in Gaza.

“Abducted alive, abandoned to their deaths. Deal now,” reads a banner waved by protesters in Tel Aviv.

Israel estimates that around 115 Israelis are held in Gaza, of which Hamas said dozens were killed in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.

Hamas said on Wednesday that it will join the upcoming Gaza cease-fire and hostage swap talks if it gets a clear commitment from Israel regarding the implementation of US President Joe Biden-backed proposal.

Last May, Biden said Israel presented a three-phase deal that would end hostilities in Gaza and secure the release of hostages held in the coastal enclave. The plan includes a cease-fire, a hostage-prisoner exchange, and the reconstruction of Gaza.

For months, the US, Qatar and Egypt have been trying to reach an agreement between Israel and Hamas to ensure a prisoner exchange and cease-fire and allow humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip.

But mediation efforts have been stalled due to Netanyahu’s refusal to meet Hamas’s demands to stop the war.

Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas.

The Israeli onslaught has since killed nearly 40,000 people, mostly women and children, and injured over 92,000 others, according to local health authorities.

Over 10 months into the Israeli onslaught, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which ordered it to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar in Ankara