When Anat Angrest’s face appears on the giant screens installed in the center of Tel Aviv, a shiver runs through the crowd that has not been able to get close to the stage where the meeting organized by the Forum of Hostage Families and Missing Persons is taking place. One hundred thousand people filled the avenues of the center on Saturday afternoon, September 14, for the great weekly end-of-Shabbat demonstration in favor of the release of the hostages held in Gaza. This demonstration, for eleven months, was located a few hundred meters away from another demonstration, demanding the resignation of the government. The mass gathering this afternoon, at 344my The day of the hostages’ arrest is “unitary” and demands all of this at the same time. Anat Angrest speaks and calls Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ask him what he intends to do for the release of the captives. But also, what is the role of “ [Itamar] Ben Gvir and [Bezalel] Smotrich »Two far-right ministers who repeated that they oppose any agreement to exchange Palestinian hostages and prisoners as long as Hamas exists, because, according to them, this would mean capitulation. Anat Angrest calls them “struck”the crowd boos them.
At the demonstrations we called Anat Angrest. “the lioness”for his combativeness in favor of “deal”The only chance before her eyes to see her son Matan alive again, a soldier captured on October 7, 2023, at the Nahal Oz base, when he was wounded. This afternoon she made the decision to release a recording of Matan’s voice, recorded in captivity. The document is taken from a video made by Hamas and found by the Israeli army in Gaza. Now, a mother stands there, stoic, as the voice of her 21-year-old son resonates, in the black avenues of people and blue of Israeli flags. Couples embrace, hold hands and tears flow. The hostages are in mortal danger, they all realized this on August 31, when the execution of six hostages by their Hamas captors in a tunnel in southern Gaza was announced, in the face of the proximity of the Israeli army.
From despair to anger
This moment was felt like a punch in the stomach by Yoram Nissenboim, a veteran of the protests. “We went from despair to anger. That is a good thing. When we are desperate, we do nothing, we are devastated. When we are angry, we act.”, he said. In the wake of this shock, a demonstration of around half a million people gathered in Tel Aviv, along with other demonstrations across the country. A dam had given way. The one that held a boundary between the pro-Israel demonstrators dealand those demanding the resignation of the government, while the most important organisation, the Forum of Relatives of Hostages and Missing Persons, had for eleven months considered it a point of honour not to include politics among its demands. This afternoon, therefore, there is only one mobilisation.
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