"Your time is running out"

Hundreds of thousands of Israelis demand an immediate deal

Relatives of the hostages are now completely desperate.

(Bild: AP/Leo Correa)

While Israel's army continues to take action against the Islamist Hamas in the sealed-off Gaza Strip, new mass demonstrations are taking place at home. Hundreds of thousands protested against the ultra-right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu.

At the main rally in the port city of Tel Aviv and other protests in other Israeli cities, participants demanded an agreement with Hamas for the release of around 100 hostages. According to local media reports, the organizers spoke of 500,000 demonstrators in Tel Aviv alone.

"We must not sacrifice any more lives, we must not sacrifice them (the remaining hostages)," said the relative of a hostage shot dead by the Islamist extremists at the rally in Tel Aviv. "Their time is running out." According to media reports, further demonstrations took place in Jerusalem, Haifa, Be'er Sheva, Naharia and Caesarea, among other places.

Hamas executed six hostages
Hamas terrorists had killed Carmel Gat and another woman and four men last week with shots fired at close range. The Israeli military found their bodies in a tunnel in Gaza last Sunday. "The six would be here with us today if (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu had said yes to a deal," Gat's relative shouted into the crowd with grief and anger in her voice.

Many Israelis are calling for an immediate halt to the Gaza war.

(Bild: AP/Leo Correa)

Hamas and other Islamist terrorist groups attacked southern Israel on October 7 last year, killing more than 1,200 people and taking around 250 others hostage in the Gaza Strip. The unprecedented massacre triggered the Gaza war.

Talks brought no result
According to an Israeli count, 101 people are still being held by Hamas, although it is unclear how many of them are still alive. Indirect negotiations for their release, in which the USA, Egypt and Qatar are mediating, have been going round in circles for months without any results. The envisaged deal would also include an end to the war, the withdrawal of the Israeli military from the Gaza Strip and the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.

Critics accuse Netanyahu of torpedoing the conclusion of such an agreement with exaggerated demands - such as for the Israeli military to remain permanently in strategic locations in the Gaza Strip. The prime minister is governing in a coalition with far-right parties that refuse to make any concessions to Hamas and are threatening him with the collapse of the government alliance.

Warring parties get last chance
The head of the US foreign intelligence service CIA, William Burns, has announced further indirect negotiations. "We will present this more detailed proposal, in the next few days I hope, and then we'll see," Burns said at an event organized by the Financial Times newspaper in London. He usually leads the US delegation at the indirect negotiations, which usually take place in Cairo or Doha.

Scenes from the large demonstration in Tel Aviv:

US media had already recently reported on a planned final proposal for an agreement. If both parties to the conflict do not accept this again, it could mean the end of the negotiations, it was said. According to Burns, the stakes are immeasurably high - also for the future and security of the entire Middle East region.