Israeli protesters closed the main Ayalon axis in Tel Aviv to traffic this morning, raising slogans demanding that the Israeli government return detainees in the Gaza Strip by concluding an immediate prisoner exchange deal.
In the city of Caesarea, south of Haifa, where one of the homes of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is located, the family of an Israeli prisoner and other protesters closed a crossroads, and his mother chanted against Netanyahu, describing him as a failure who prefers his political survival to the lives of the prisoners and Israelis in general.
In response to American reports saying that 50 out of 120 Israeli prisoners held by Palestinian factions in Gaza are still alive, their families demanded that Netanyahu return them immediately, stressing that time is running out.
The Israeli Prisoners’ Families Forum said on the
The forum added that “there is no distinction between the return of detainees alive for rehabilitation and the return of the dead for burial, and Israel is obligated to return all of them. Violating this principle constitutes a breach of trust and a violation of the Israeli spirit established for mutual guarantee.”
He called on the international community to work for the return of all 120 detainees, and called on the Israeli government to take the initiative to reach a comprehensive agreement for their return and to do so immediately, as “time is running out for them.”
In recent weeks, the families of Israeli prisoners have escalated their protests demanding a prisoner exchange agreement with the Palestinians and a ceasefire in Gaza.
Tel Aviv estimates that there are 120 Israeli prisoners in Gaza, while the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) announced that more than 70 of them were killed as a result of random raids launched by Israel, which holds at least 9,500 Palestinians in its prisons.
With the mediation of Egypt and Qatar, and with the participation of the United States, Israel and Hamas have been conducting faltering indirect negotiations to conclude an agreement for months. Last May, the Palestinian factions agreed to a proposed agreement put forward by Egypt and Qatar, but Netanyahu rejected it, claiming that it did not meet Israel’s conditions.
Hamas and the rest of the Palestinian factions accuse Israel and its ally, the United States, of not wanting to end the war, and of seeking through negotiations to buy time, hoping that Tel Aviv will achieve gains.