Hostage families led a convoy of cars Wednesday, driving from Tel Aviv’s hostage square towards the Gaza border. The families and Israelis in the convoy will stop at various locations in Israel’s south, before gathering near Israel’s border with Gaza Thursday to call to their loved ones using huge speakers, the Hostage Families Forum said.
A line of cars snaked down the road in Tel Aviv just before the convoy got underway. Some of the cars used trailers to tow the burned husks of cars destroyed in the October 7 attack, most were covered in yellow flags and decals calling to “seal the deal.”
“The only thing preventing a [hostage] deal is the turning of the Philadelphi Corridor into the end-all-be-all,” said Hagit Chen, mother of Itay Chen who was killed on October 7 and whose body is still held in Hamas captivity.
“My Itay, I’m sorry. Sorry that in the eyes of the abandoning Israeli government you are not enough, because the Philadelphi Corridor is more important to them than you and 107 other hostages.”
“The prime minister has a majority for a deal in the government, he has a majority in the Knesset and he has a political safety net for a deal,” she added, saying that the only thing stopping him from making a deal is the making of the Philadelphi Corridor all-important.
“For 18 years [Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] chose in all previous missions not to go into the Philadelphi Corridor and for seven months of fighting, the IDF was not there,” she concluded.
“What will be written in the pages of history about this damn war is not if we conquered the Philadelphi Corridor or how many terrorists we killed, but if we took care of our hostages and brought them home,” said Shira Albag, mother of Liri Albag, who was taken from the Nahal Oz base on OCtober 7.
Addressing Israel’s leaders
“After 327 days and nights, your excuses have run out,” she added, addressing Israel’s political leaders. “This will be on your conscience, a wound that will never close and it will be remembered by all as the destruction of the country for generations.
“I’m sorry my Liri,” she concluded. “I am sorry they abandoned you and are continuing to abandon you.”
Ziv Abud, the fiance of Eliya Cohen who was taken hostage from a roadside bomb shelter after fleeing the Nova festival, said that she hopes he will hear her when she calls out to him.
“Today I am driving to be close to you, I wish that you will hear me. I wish that you will come back already.”
Abud also said that Israel has so far rescued eight living hostages, while the first deal freed 105. “I ask that our leaders ask themselves if they understand that any effort to delay a deal is gambling with the hostages’ lives.”
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