Hostage families storm the Israeli parliament and demand the release of their relatives – video about the war between Israel and Gaza
Protesters are calling on the Israeli government to do more to release their relatives as the worst violence since the start of the war erupts south of Gaza
Monday, January 22, 2024, 3:57 p.m. GMT
Family members of Israelis held hostage in the Gaza Strip have stormed a parliament session in Jerusalem to demand that the Israeli government do more to return their loved ones as fighting in Khan Younis has reached unprecedented levels.
About 20 relatives of those captured by the Palestinian militant group in the Oct. 7 attack disrupted a meeting of the Knesset Finance Committee on Monday, chanting: “Release them now, now, now!”
A woman whose three family members were kidnapped by Hamas shouted: “Only one I want back alive, one out of three.” Other protesters held signs reading: “You will not sit here while they die there.”
On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected Hamas' new conditions for ending the war and releasing the hostages, including the Islamist group maintaining control of Gaza and Israel's full withdrawal. In response, a Hamas official in Qatar said Netanyahu's refusal to end the military offensive in Gaza meant there was “no chance for the prisoners to return.”
As part of a week-long ceasefire in late November, a total of 110 Israelis and other nationals were released in return for 240 Palestinian women and children held in Israeli prisons at the end of November. Since then, several attempts to bring about a ceasefire have failed.
Protesters took to the streets of Jerusalem on Sunday as families of hostages and supporters called for the immediate release of those still in the Gaza Strip. Photo: Ronen Zvulun/Portal
Concerned that their loved ones' plight is now taking a backseat to Israel's goal of destroying Hamas, the families of the remaining 130 hostages appear to be resorting to more drastic measures, including further demonstrations outside Netanyahu's private home, in search of another release deal.
Israeli forces' admission last week that three hostages whose bodies were recovered in the Jabaliya area in December may have been killed in an airstrike on a Hamas tunnel has also stoked fears among relatives. At least 27 hostages are believed to have died in Gaza, including three men shot dead by Israeli soldiers after escaping captivity and asking troops for help.
At a meeting with 15 of the hostage families after the Knesset protest on Monday, Netanyahu's office said that, contrary to reports of a growing consensus on a ceasefire agreement, there had been “no real proposal from Hamas.”
In a statement, an official said: “I'm saying this as clearly as I can because there are so many untruths.” [reports] This is definitely tormenting you. On the other hand, there is our initiative, which I don’t want to go into in detail.”
A wounded child is brought to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza, on Monday. Photo: Mohammed Dahman/AP
In Gaza, Israel's nearly four-month-old offensive in Khan Younis, the largest city in the southern Gaza Strip, accelerated last week. Israeli officials are calling the offensive the last large-scale ground attack before shifting to more targeted, lower-intensity operations to root out Hamas, as demanded by U.S. allies.
Serious ground maneuvers began overnight in the south and west of the city, with local authorities reporting that airstrikes and shelling killed about 50 people and wounded 100 others. More victims are believed to be trapped under the rubble.
Smoke rises from Israeli ground operations in Khan Younis on Monday. Photo: Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Portal
Israeli tanks reached the gates of two Khan Younis hospitals on Monday, area residents said, leading to the bloodiest fighting of 2024 so far and the worst violence in southern Gaza since the war began on October 7, when Hamas killed 1,200 His attack on southern Israel killed people.
According to the Ministry of Health in Hamas-controlled territory, more than 25,200 people in Gaza have now been killed in the fighting, most of them women and children.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said on Monday it had lost all contact with its staff at Khan Younis' Al-Amal Hospital, adding that tanks had surrounded both Al-Khair Hospital and nearby Al-Aqsa University, where thousands of displaced people sought refuge.
A woman mourns as people bury the bodies of Palestinians killed in Khan Younis. Photo: Ahmed Zakot/Portal
“It's very difficult to leave that [hospital] We will visit every complex and go to every cemetery and bury bodies because we are under siege and anyone who leaves the complex will be targeted,” Abdelkarim Ahmad, who helped bury the dead, told Portal.
At Nasser Hospital, the only major hospital still accessible in Khan Younis and the largest hospital still functioning in Gaza, witnesses said the trauma ward was overcrowded with wounded people being treated on the floor and in the hallways.
The majority of Gaza's 2.3 million residents now live in two cities: Deir al-Balah, north of Khan Younis, and Rafah, on the border with Egypt. Most are crammed into public buildings and vast camps of makeshift tents as disease and starvation ravage the trapped population.
Israeli plans for the two areas remain unclear, but Israel has said it will not stop fighting until Hamas is completely eradicated. Analysts say that goal is unrealistic given the group's entrenched presence in Gaza and elsewhere.
Israel blames Hamas for the high number of civilian deaths in the offensive, as it uses the population as human shields. Hamas denies the accusation.
Rising tensions and violence across the Middle East, sparked by the war in Gaza, have fueled fears of a wider conflagration involving Iranian-backed groups in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen, as well as the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem .
The biggest fear is of a new conflict with the Lebanese group Hezbollah on Israel's northern border, where clashes that began in October have intensified in recent weeks.
Netanyahu has also been criticized for reiterating his opposition to an independent Palestinian state, a stance at odds with the United States, Israel's main ally. Joe Biden has expended enormous amounts of international and domestic political capital defending Israel's war effort, despite a growing global outcry over the conflict's devastating humanitarian consequences.
Support for the war remains high among Israelis, but opinion polls show support for Netanayahu and his far-right coalition lagging. Weekly Saturday evening rallies calling for the release of hostages have been supplemented in recent weeks by increasing calls for elections.
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