Families of fallen soldiers, hostages protest ‘surrender’ deal

“We won’t forget; we won’t forgive. You don’t have a mandate to surrender to Hamas,” says protest organizer.

By World Israel News Staff

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered near the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem on Tuesday night, calling on the Israeli government to reject the potential ceasefire and hostage deal with Hamas.

The agreement would see thousands of terrorists freed, including those serving life sentences for murdering Israelis, and a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip in exchange for the release of 34 hostages, an unknown number of whom are alive.

The protesters, many of whom are family members of fallen soldiers and hostages, say that the current deal abandons the vast majority of captives, including all healthy young men under the age of 50.

The first stage of the deal would see the release of all women currently held along with men over the age of 50 and those with critical medical conditions.

Under the terms of the deal, the return of men under 50 and dead bodies are matters to be negotiated later.

“We demand that agreements be made now promising everyone’s return, not in the future,” said Lishay Lavi Miran, whose husband Omri was kidnapped on October 7. “Time has not been on our side for a long while.”

“We are calling on the prime minister not to give into this deal… a deal that will free thousands of terrorists with blood on their hands,” a representative from the Gvura Forum, which organized the protest, said over a loudspeaker. “We won’t forget; we won’t forgive. You don’t have a mandate to surrender to Hamas.”

Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Weitzen, whose IDF soldier son was killed battling Hamas terrorists on October 7, urged Israel to continue the fight against Hamas.

“When you have an enemy who is evil to you, you lay siege to it. You don’t need to do anything aside from that. To lay siege, to fight, to stop the electricity,” he said. “Then, maybe the evil will understand and get down on its knees and beg to return the hostages to us.”

Weitzen referred to the fight against Hamas a “struggle between good and evil.”

Amitai Wiesel, whose brother Elkana fell in combat in the Strip in January 2024, referenced a speech made by Netanyahu that categorized the war in similar terms.

“I remember, as if it were today, one of your first [press conferences] at the start of the war. You called this war a war between the children of light and children of darkness,” Wiesel said, in remarks aimed at Netanyahu.

“I ask you today, Mr. Prime Minister, what happened to the children of light and the children of darkness? Did something change so that you started to talk with the children of darkness?”