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Screaming towards captive relatives, hostage families rush Gaza border during protest march

The brief run came after the relatives used loudspeakers to call out messages of love and support for the abductees, and for the government to agree to a deal to release them.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Families of hostages being held by Hamas ran through a gate in the fence around the demilitarized strip bordering Gaza and ran towards the border for several minutes Wednesday before turning back.

In clips uploaded to social media, a few dozen men and women can be seen dashing along a dirt road next to a fence topped with barbed wire, holding pictures of their loved ones and shouting, “[Bring] all of them [home] now!”

One woman can be heard screaming, “Enough!” and another calling out, “Liri, I’m coming!”

Liri Albag was one of five female soldiers kidnapped from the Nahal Oz military base during Hamas’ October 7th invasion, whose job was to observe the goings-on over the Gazan border.

She is still in captivity, held along with 106 other Israelis and foreign nationals by Hamas and other terrorists groups in the coastal enclave.

The runners then turn right through an open gate, going towards the actual border before listening to soldiers begging them to go back.

In describing the incident, the Hostage and Missing Families Forum said that the families “had been shouting through loudspeakers for their loved ones who have been dying in the Hamas tunnels for 328 days. The families, in great pain, broke through the Gaza fence and ran towards the Gaza Strip – crying out to get as close to their loved ones as possible.”

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The headquarters also stated, “The families are crying out to close the deal that will bring back their loved ones – the living for rehabilitation and the martyrs and the murdered for burial in their country.”

The families had left Tel Aviv Wednesday evening in a long line of cars and arrived around 10:00 a.m. Thursday with the loudspeakers in the hope of sending powerful messages of hope to their loved ones, as well as one to the government, to agree to all of Hamas’ demands in order to free them, which is the Forum’s guiding principle.

American-Israeli Jon Polin, whose son Hersh was shown alive in a Hamas propaganda video in April, called out, “Hersh, it’s dad. We need you to know that not only the families are here today, and not only the nine million people in this country, but the whole world. We won’t stop until all of you get back home soon.”

Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of lone soldier Edan Alexander, who came to serve in the IDF from New Jersey, cried into the microphone, “It’s grandma and grandpa, you are our soul, do you hear us? …. Be strong, you’re strong, survive, we’re doing everything we can for you and for all the other hostages.”

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Many begged the hostages not to give up, saying that they were badly missed and tremendously loved, and promising that they would never give up on them.

Some hostages’ families, who believe that capitulating to Hamas would seriously damage Israel’s long-term interests and back the view that the terror organization must be dismantled no matter the private price they may pay, have formed their own group called the Tikva Forum to push for overwhelming military pressure on Hamas to get their loved ones released.