Ten of thousands of protesters gathered in Tel Aviv and cities across Israel on Saturday evening to call for a hostage deal and ceasefire agreement before Israel launches its planned mission to conquer Gaza City, as the families of the captives called for a general strike in opposition to the plan that they warn will mark a death knell for their loved ones.

The protests, which were some of the biggest in months, came days after the cabinet decided to seize the densely populated Palestinian city despite the military’s objections that the move would imperil the captives, needlessly endanger troops, and deepen the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

“A bright red flag is waving over the government’s decision to sacrifice our loved ones,” said the Hostages and Missing Families Forum in a press release before Saturday’s rallies. The Forum urged decision-makers: “Reach a comprehensive hostage deal, stop the war, bring us back our loved ones — their time is up.”

The Families Forum, which represents the majority of the hostage families, also held rallies in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, the Shaar HaNegev Junction in the south, and Kiryat Gat, with smaller gatherings in dozens of other locations.

Speaking before a crowd of at least 10,000 people at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, former captive Sharon Aloni-Cunio marked Tu B’Av, the Jewish festival of love that begins Saturday, with a speech about her husband David Cunio, who remains in captivity.

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She said after seeing hostages Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski emaciated in propaganda footage last week, “I thought about my David: How much does he weigh? When did he last eat? Will he also be asked to dig his own grave?”

Former hostage Sharon Aloni-Cunio, the wife of captive David Cunio, speaks during a rally at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, August 9, 2025. (Paulina Patimer/Hostages and Missing Families Forum)

“Now, when eternal-war mongers are pushing all of us to a terrible disaster, they’re not even doing it for the hostages — they say out loud that they’re willing to sacrifice the hostages,” she said, slamming the government’s decision to expand the fighting and take over Gaza City.

She added that her young daughter Yuli, who was released with twin sister Emma and Sharon during the November 2023 ceasefire, “is asking me if her dad no longer loves her because he hasn’t yet come back from Gaza.”

“I say to all decision-makers: If, God forbid, anything happens to my David, or to any other hostage, it’s on your hands,” she said.

A rally at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, August 9, 2025. (Aviv Atlas/Hostages and Missing Families Forum)

Eliya Cohen, who was released from Hamas captivity in February as part of the last truce-hostage deal, also spoke at Hostages Square: “Today is Tu B’Av, and I, with God’s help, am standing here next to my woman, after being sure for 505 days that she was murdered in the shelter where we hid” during the Hamas massacre at the Reim-area Nova music festival on October 7, 2023.

“I was saved, came back, and she was waiting for me,” he said. “Today we could have celebrated, but it’s impossible… when we know that there are families that didn’t get that chance. That there are still people there who are unsure if they’ll get to love again.”

Former hostage Eliya Cohen speaks during a rally at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, August 9, 2025. (Paulina Patimer/Hostages and Missing Families Forum)

Following harrowing footage of captives David and Braslavski last week, Cohen said “the writing was on the wall” that the hostages were being starved, adding that the cabinet’s decision to take over Gaza City puts them in still more danger.

“The decision to take over Gaza stresses me out. I know what happens to the hostages when the fighting intensifies,” he said.

Cohen called for a comprehensive deal to end the war and release all 50 remaining hostages: “I know what it’s like to come back in a partial deal. I live with daily feelings of guilt, and don’t wish upon anyone to feel what it’s like to leave a brother behind.”

Nearby, at the anti-government, pro-hostage deal protest in front of the Begin Street entrance to the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv, speakers urged soldiers to refuse to serve in the expanded fighting, and called on opposition heads as well as business, labor and academic leaders to bring the country to a standstill.

Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, sits on the shoulders of Michel Illouz, father of fallen hostage Guy Illouz, as they attend a demonstration organized by the families of the Gaza hostages to demand a deal for their release, outside the Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv, on August 9, 2025. (Jack Guez/AFP)

“An entire county is held hostage by Hamas and the government of Israel,” said Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker. “What needs to be done? The country needs to grind to a halt, now.”

“The mission you’ll be given is participation in the killing of hostages,” said Shai Mozes, nephew of former hostage Gadi Mozes, in a speech before thousands of people at the demonstration. “In this situation, there is no other choice but to refuse.”

The mother of a combat officer in the IDF reserves, introduced only as Bat-El, told the listening crowd that soldiers are wasting away physically and mentally and are deprived of proper defensive equipment.

The Gaza City takeover plan “puts Israel on the sure path to a forever war that will cause the death of the hostages, cause the deaths of hundreds of soldiers, cause the destruction of Israel’s image,” she said.

Anti-government, pro-hostage deal protesters demonstrate outside the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv, August 9, 2025. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

“Don’t agree to enter Gaza,” she urged. “Refuse to participate in an overtly illegal war.”

While the speakers did not mention the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as a reason to refuse to fight there, some protesters held up signs calling on soldiers to refuse to serve for that reason as well.

Elsewhere in Tel Aviv, several hundred left-wing activists held a silent protest, displaying signs showing pictures of Palestinian children killed by the IDF in Gaza.

Following the speeches on Begin Street, some protesters hoisted flaming torches as they prepared to march around the IDF headquarters in protest of the cabinet plan, alongside thousands more who joined from the Hostages Square rally a block away.

As more protesters gathered near Begin, dozens poured onto the Ayalon highway, blocking both northbound and southbound traffic and lighting bonfires, and were later removed by police who reopened the highway.

Anti-government, pro-hostage deal protesters block the Ayalon Highway in Tel Aviv, August 9, 2025. (Ido Lempert/Pro-Democracy Protest Movement)

Push for a general strike

As was mentioned by several relatives of hostages during the protests on Saturday night, groups representing the families of the hostages and fallen soldiers are leading a push for a general strike of Israel’s economy over the government’s plans for Gaza, although the national labor union has indicated that it won’t declare one.

The families are planning to announce the demand and further steps at a press conference in Tel Aviv on Sunday, according to Hebrew media reports.

They will push private companies, organizations, trade unions and ordinary citizens to participate in the strike, under the slogan: “Silence kills — the country grinds to a halt to save the hostages and the soldiers.”

However, Hebrew media cited the national Histadrut labor federation as saying a strike “is not expected” in the near future, though its head Arnon Bar-David plans to meet representatives of the families this coming week.

The option of a Histadrut-backed strike is reportedly off the table after Tel Aviv’s labor court last year ruled that a labor action aimed at pressuring the government to seal a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza following the murder of six hostages was illegal because it was political and not related to workers’ rights.

Hamas ‘shot itself in foot,’ says official

While the hostage-ceasefire negotiations have all but gone cold, an unnamed Israeli official hinted at the possibility of bringing Hamas back to the negotiating table for a ceasefire-hostage release deal, speaking to Channel 12 news on Saturday.

“With the flooding of the Gaza Strip with humanitarian aid, Hamas’s starvation campaign is fading away. Hamas understands that it shot itself in the foot with the videos of starving hostages, and therefore, the possibility that they will return to negotiations can’t be dismissed,” the official said, referencing the propaganda videos of David and Braslavski that sparked international outrage.

“The mediators are already seeing positive signs of this,” the official added.

Families of Israelis held hostage in Gaza, former hostages and supporters hold a press conference in Tel Aviv, on August 9, 2025. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

Similarly, Channel 12 journalist Amit Segal reported that there is a chance for Israel to reach a limited ceasefire deal with Hamas in Gaza “soon,” citing an unnamed Israeli source with knowledge.

“An informed Israeli source claims there is a chance of a partial deal soon,” Segal wrote on X, without providing further details.

The source’s claim conflicts with previous suggestions that Israel’s approval of a plan to take over Gaza City aims to pressure Hamas into agreeing to a comprehensive ceasefire and hostage-release deal proposed by the United States.

The Prime Minister’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Overnight Thursday-Friday, the security cabinet approved a proposal by Netanyahu to take over the densely populated Gaza City, bucking warnings from the army that the operation risks the lives of the remaining hostages in addition to potentially sparking a humanitarian disaster.

Shortly before the cabinet meeting, however, Netanyahu said that Israel intends to take control of the entire Strip, then hand it over to an unspecified Arab governing force. The premier said a “detailed plan” will be developed for this post-Hamas government, and that it will not place Israel in control of the Strip as a civil government, nor allow the Palestinian Authority to play a role.

Asked in a Fox News interview if Israel will take over the entire 26-mile strip, Netanyahu said: “We intend to, in order to assure our security, remove Hamas there, enable the population to be free of Gaza (sic), and to pass it civilian governance.” But, he stressed, “We don’t want to keep it. We want to have a security perimeter, but we don’t want to govern it. We don’t want to be there as a governing body.”

The prime minister said that Israel wants to “hand it over to Arab forces that will govern it properly, without threatening us, and giving the Gazans a good life.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to Fox News on August 7, 2025 (Screen Capture)

Netanyahu also told a group of visiting Indian journalists, according to the English-language CNN-News18, that, “Our plan is not to occupy or annex Gaza. Our goal is to destroy Hamas and get our hostages back, and then hand over Gaza to a transitory government.”

Bahbah ‘ready to aid in any way’

Also on Saturday, Palestinian-American political activist Bishara Bahbah, who served as a mediator in the since-collapsed talks between Israel and Hamas, vehemently denied a Channel 12 report claiming he is at odds with US special envoy Steve Witkoff.

Bahbah had been used periodically to send messages between the US and Hamas and played a key role in the May release of American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander.

Bishara Bahbah is interviewed on Al Ghad TV on June 24, 2025. (Screen capture/Facebook)

Without citing any sources, Channel 12 claimed that Bahbah believes Hamas was close to accepting a deal for a truce and partial release of hostages, and that the talks were abandoned too early by Israel and Washington. The network also said that Bahbah was frustrated that Witkoff followed Israel’s lead in dismissing Hamas’s conditions for a deal and that the Palestinian-American activist will work on his own moving forward to try and secure a ceasefire.

In a Facebook post responding to the report, Bahbah called it “fake news.”

“For the record, I was never a member of the US negotiating team. I have played the role of a mediator whenever Steve Witkoff asked me to do so. I have tremendous respect for Mr. Witkoff. I believe that President Trump wants to end the tragedy in Gaza. I will always be ready to aid in any way I can, leading to the end of the war in Gaza. I have and will always be a loud voice advocating for the people of Gaza,” he said.

Buildings that were destroyed during the Israeli ground and air operations stand in the northern Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, August 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are holding 50 hostages, including 49 of the 251 abducted in the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza. They include the bodies of at least 28 confirmed dead by the IDF.

Twenty are believed to be alive, and there are grave concerns for the well-being of two others, Israeli officials have said. Hamas is also holding the body of an IDF soldier killed in Gaza in 2014.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 60,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters.