Protesters calling for a hostage deal blocked a number of highways and rallied outdoors Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Jerusalem residence on Friday night, because the Hostages and Lacking Households Discussion board introduced one other day of nationwide hostage protests for Tuesday.
The protests come as Israel plans to launch a serious offensive to seize Gaza Metropolis, a transfer that the families of the captives say will condemn them to their deaths, and days after Hamas accepted a proposal for a partial hostage deal, which Israel has not formally responded to.
In Tel Aviv, protesters blocked site visitors in each instructions on the Ayalon freeway, close to the Hashalom interchange.
Footage on social media confirmed the demonstrators unfurling banners studying “Cease till they’re all again” and organising a desk for a Shabbat meal.
Hebrew media quoted the protesters as saying that whereas Netanyahu “sits on the Shabbat desk, hostage households are pressured to spend Friday in worry for the destiny of their family members.”
They added that “there’s a deal on the desk” and demanded that Netanyahu settle for it.
פעילים למען החטופים חוסמים את נתיבי איילון במחלף השלום | @lee_ayash pic.twitter.com/pbsVtxngXB
— i24NEWS (@i24NEWS_HE) August 22, 2025
Protesters additionally arrange a mock Shabbat desk and blocked site visitors on Route 6, close to the Elyakin Interchange in northern Israel.
“There can be no Shabbat meal anyplace within the nation till everybody’s again and the warfare ends,” the protesters stated, in accordance with Ynet.
שלושים איש החליטו עכשיו לחסום את כביש שש באזור מחלף אליקים, “למען החטופים”. שוב נהגים אקראיים סופגים בריונות לא לגיטימית. אסור למשטרת ישראל לאפשר את זה pic.twitter.com/2npzksxiXP
— Akiva Novick (@akivanovick) August 22, 2025
Protesters additionally gathered outdoors the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem, the place they arrange one other Shabbat desk with the message: “Netanyahu — depart the Shabbat desk and transfer to the negotiating desk.”
On the rally, protesters positioned photos of remaining hostages on seats round a desk set for a meal of pita slices and canned beans — the meals given to the captives in Gaza.
Yael Adar, mom of slain captive Tamir Adar, assailed Netanyahu in a speech outdoors the premier’s residence for approving the brand new Gaza Metropolis offensive moderately than shifting ahead on a ceasefire-hostage deal.
“As an alternative of heading south for conferences on conquering Gaza, you need to go as much as Jerusalem to convene the cupboard, and say one factor — ‘I’m sending a negotiating workforce, and [they’re] not coming residence till there’s a deal to carry again all of the hostages,” she stated.
Photos of hostages nonetheless in Gaza are positioned on chairs round a Shabbat desk arrange outdoors the Jerusalem residence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, August 22, 2025. (Hostages and Lacking Households Discussion board)
Because the protests have been going down, the Hostages Discussion board introduced plans for a “day of mass public identification” with the captives on Tuesday, as they push for continued mass protests to strain the federal government to make a cope with Hamas to free the captives.
Protests will happen throughout the nation, with a central rally set to happen at Hostages Sq. at 8 p.m. following a march from the close by Savidor prepare station, the Discussion board stated.
The announcement got here a day after Netanyahu vowed to take over Gaza Metropolis and stated he would maintain talks on a deal to launch all of the hostages, prompting criticism from some hostage households for his failure to handle a partial ceasefire-hostage deal that Hamas stated it had accepted.
“We’re within the midst of one other premeditated torpedoing [of a deal] by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” the Discussion board stated in a press launch on its new protest plans. “The federal government is disconnected from the nation and is sacrificing its residents.”
Hostage households stage a protest outdoors the Jerusalem residence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, August 22, 2025.
(Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Earlier this week, the Discussion board announced a day of nationwide protests deliberate for this coming Sunday, to comply with the mass demonstrations that passed off final Sunday, however later modified the format of the deliberate rallies, favoring smaller occasions throughout the nation as a substitute of 1 main protest in Tel Aviv. The mass protest in Tel Aviv will as a substitute be held on Tuesday.
The Discussion board says final Sunday’s protests have been “only the start.”
“This coming Tuesday, Israel will rally to the aspect of the hostages, to the aspect of the troopers exhausted by the burden, to the aspect of tens of hundreds of evacuees ready to return to their properties in security,” after being displaced by the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, the Discussion board stated.
Individuals collect at Hostages Sq. in Tel Aviv, throughout a rally calling for the discharge of hostages held in Gaza, August 17, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
Final week’s protest in Tel Aviv was one of many largest for the reason that warfare started practically two years in the past, and in accordance with the Hostages Discussion board was attended by over half one million individuals, although there have been no official police estimates for the gang’s measurement.
The discussion board additionally estimated that some 1 million individuals had taken half in protests throughout the nation all through the day, as protest teams and organizations joined forces to stage a serious day of civil disobedience to finish the warfare in Gaza.
The rallies have been accompanied by strikes at tons of of native authorities, companies, universities, and tech corporations, although Israel’s central labor union, the Histadrut, didn’t be part of.
Terror teams within the Gaza Strip are holding 50 hostages, together with 49 of the 251 kidnapped in Hamas’s October 7 onslaught and the physique of an IDF soldier killed in 2014. Twenty of the hostages are believed by Israel to be alive, with 28 declared useless by Israeli authorities and “grave issues” for the well-being of two others.
