People take part in a protest demanding the immediate release of all hostages held by Hamas and calling for the end of the war in the Gaza Strip, in Jerusalem, Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
| Photo Credit: Leo Correa

This undated photo provided by The Hostages Families Forum Headquarters on August 30, 2025, shows Israeli hostage Idan Shtivi (28) whose body was recovered in an Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip.
| Photo Credit: AP

READ MORE

Protesters in Israel demanding the government make a deal to secure the release of hostages held by militants in Gaza escalated their campaign on Sunday (August 17, 2025), staging a nationwide strike that blocked traffic and closed businesses.

The “day of stoppage” was organised by two groups representing some of the families of hostages and bereaved families, weeks after militant groups released videos of hostages and Israel announced plans for a new offensive.

Protesters, who fear further fighting could endanger the 50 hostages believed to remain in Gaza, only about 20 of whom are thought to be alive, chanted: “We don’t win a war over the bodies of hostages.”

Protesters gathered at dozens of points throughout Israel, including outside politicians’ homes, military headquarters and on major highways, where they were sprayed with water cannons as they blocked lanes and lit bonfires that cloaked roads in smoke. Some restaurants and theatres shuttered in solidarity.

Police said they had arrested 32 as part of the nationwide demonstration — one of the fiercest since the uproar over six hostages found dead in Gaza last September.

“Military pressure doesn’t bring hostages back – it only kills them,” former hostage Arbel Yehoud said at a demonstration in Tel Aviv’s hostage square. “The only way to bring them back is through a deal, all at once, without games.”

Netanyahu’s allies oppose any deal that leaves Hamas in power

“Today, we stop everything to save and bring back the hostages and soldiers. Today, we stop everything to remember the supreme value of the sanctity of life,” said Anat Angrest, mother of hostage Matan Angrest. “Today, we stop everything to join hands — right, left, centre and everything in between.”

Although Israel’s largest labour union, Histadrut, ultimately did not join Sunday’s (August 17, 2025) action, strikes of this magnitude are relatively rare in Israel. Many businesses and municipalities decided independently to strike.

Still, an end to the conflict does not appear near. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has demanded the immediate release of the hostages but is balancing competing pressures, haunted by the potential for mutiny within his coalition. Far-right members of his cabinet insist they won’t support any deal that allows Hamas to retain power. The last time Israel agreed to a ceasefire that released hostages, they threatened to topple Netanyahu’s government.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Sunday (August 17, 2025) called the stoppage “a bad and harmful campaign that plays into Hamas’ hands, buries the hostages in the tunnels and attempts to get Israel to surrender to its enemies and jeopardise its security and future.”

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, in a statement, accused protesters of trying to “weaken Israel.” Like Mr. Smotrich, he said the strike “strengthens Hamas and delays the return of the hostages”

Israeli airstrike hits power plant in Yemen

Israeli airstrikes hit Yemen’s capital on Sunday (August 17, 2025), escalating strikes on Iran-backed Houthis, who, since the war began, have fired missiles at Israel and targeted ships in the Red Sea.

Both the IDF and a Houthi-run television station in Yemen announced the strikes. Al-Masirah Television said they targeted a power plant in the southern district of Sanhan, sparking a fire and knocking it out of service, the Yemeni station said. Israel’s military said Sunday’s (August 17, 2025) strikes targeted energy infrastructure it claimed was being used by the Houthis and were launched in response to missiles and drones aimed at Israel.

While some projectiles have breached its missile defences — notably during its 12-day war with Iran in June — Israel has intercepted the vast majority of missiles launched from Yemen.

More tents sent to Gaza ahead of new displacement order

While demonstrators in Israel demanded a ceasefire, Israel began preparing for an invasion of Gaza City and other populated parts of the besieged strip, aimed at destroying Hamas.

The military body that coordinates its humanitarian aid to Gaza said Sunday (August 17, 2025) that the supply of tents to the territory would resume. COGAT said it would allow the United Nations to resume importing tents and shelter equipment into Gaza ahead of plans to forcibly evacuate people from combat zones “for their protection.”

The majority of assistance has been blocked from entering Gaza since Israel imposed a total blockade in March after a ceasefire collapsed when Israel restarted its offensive. Deliveries have since partially resumed, though aid organisations say the flow is far below what is needed.

Some have accused Israel of “weaponising aid” through blockades and rules they say turn humanitarian assistance into a tool of its political and military goals.

Israel’s air and ground war has already killed tens of thousands of people in Gaza and displaced most of the population. The United Nations is warning that levels of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza are at their highest since the war began.

The Hamas-led attack in 2023 killed around 1,200 people in Israel. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed 61,897 people in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry, which does not specify how many were fighters or civilians but says around half were women and children.

On Sunday (August 17, 2025), two children died of malnutrition-related causes in Gaza, bringing the total over the last 24 hours to seven, according to the ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals.

The U.N. and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on casualties. Israel disputes its figures but has not provided its own.

Published – August 17, 2025 04:26 pm IST

The Israeli military said its forces recovered the bodies of six hostages in an overnight operation in southern Gaza
| Photo Credit: AFP

The Israeli military said on Tuesday (August 20, 2024) that it recovered the bodies of six hostages taken in Hamas’ October 7 attack that started the war in Gaza, as U.S. and Arab mediators tried to advance an agreement to halt the fighting and release scores of other militant-held captives.

The military said its forces recovered the bodies in an overnight operation in southern Gaza, without saying when or how the six died. A forum for hostage families said they were kidnapped alive. Hamas says some captives have been killed and wounded in Israeli airstrikes.

The recovery is a blow to Hamas, which hopes to exchange hostages for Palestinian prisoners, an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a lasting cease-fire. But it was also likely to increase pressure on Israel’s government to reach a deal to release dozens of hostages who are still believed to be alive.

The military said it had identified the remains of Haim Perry, 80; Yoram Metzger, 80; Avraham Munder, 79; Alexander Dancyg, 76; Nadav Popplewell, 51; and Yagev Buchshtav, 35. Metzger, Munder, Popplewell and Buchshtav had family members who were also abducted but freed during a November cease-fire.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the recovery effort and said “our hearts ache for the terrible loss.”

“The State of Israel will continue to make every effort to return all of our hostages — both alive and dead,” he said in a statement.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant also praised the operation, which he said had been carried out inside Hamas’ vast tunnel network. There were no immediate reports of any casualties among Israelis or Palestinians in the recovery operation.

Hamas is still believed to be holding around 110 hostages captured in the October 7 attack. Israeli authorities estimate around a third of them are dead.

Mr. Blinken, who is on his ninth visit to the region since the start of the war, said on Monday (August 19, 2024) that Netanyahu has accepted a proposal to bridge gaps in the cease-fire talks, which have dragged on for months, and called on Hamas to do the same.

Hamas has accused the United States of embracing Israeli demands and trying to impose them on the militant group.

Hamas-led militants burst through Israel’s defenses on Oct. 7 and rampaged across the south, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 people hostage. Over 100 hostages were released in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned in Israel during a weeklong cease-fire last year.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were militants. Air and ground operations have caused widespread destruction and forced the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents to flee their homes, often multiple times. Aid groups fear the outbreak of diseases like polio.

The mediators have been trying to finalize a proposal for a three-phase process in which Hamas would release all the hostages in return for the release of more Palestinian prisoners, an Israeli withdrawal from the territory and a lasting truce.

But there still appear to be wide gaps between the two sides, including Israel’s demand for lasting control over two strategic corridors in Gaza, which Hamas has rejected.

Jewish people marked April 22 the start of Passover, a celebration of freedom, and around many holiday tables in Israel chairs stood empty for hostages still held captive in Gaza.

The week-long Jewish festival, also known in Hebrew as the “holiday of freedom”, celebrates the Israelites’ liberation from Egyptian slavery, as told in the Bible.

Passover is traditionally observed with a seder: a holiday feast when families eat symbolic foods and read the Haggadah.

The more than millennium-old text recounts the Exodus and Jewish people’s ties to, and their yearning to return to, the Holy Land.

For many this year, Passover will be stained by absence and anguish; particularly the relatives of the hostages, grieving families and more than 120,000 Israelis displaced from their homes in the north and south of the country because of the war in the Gaza Strip.

“All of the symbolic things we do at the seder will take on a much more profound and deep meaning this year,” said Rachel Goldberg-Polin, whose son Hersh is one of the hostages.

“The bread of affliction, the bitter herbs, the saltwater that represents the tears of the Jewish people when they were in captivity, in slavery.”

For days, Israeli Jews have been making preparations for the holiday: fastidious house cleaning, burning leavened goods eschewed during Passover, and copious food shopping.

How can we celebrate?

But the holiday mood has been dampened by more than six months of war in Gaza, with many Israelis serving in the military away from home.

Above all, the continuing captivity of 129 hostages abducted by Palestinian militants on October 7 has cast a pall over Passover.

On that day, Gaza-based militants launched an unprecedented attack on southern Israel, resulting in the deaths of 1,170 people, Israelis and foreigners, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Militants also abducted some 250 people during the attack.

Israel’s retaliatory invasion of the Gaza Strip has killed 34,151 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

Neither military force nor indirect negotiations with Hamas have yet succeeded in bringing the remaining hostages home.

“Everything is deadlocked and nobody knows how to move forward, on our side and on the Hamas side,” said Gershon Baskin, an Israeli activist who has mediated between Israel and Hamas for more than a decade to free hostages in Gaza.

“We’re held hostage by our government and held hostage by Hamas,” he said. “There is no freedom this year.”

For many relatives of the captives, this Passover will not be joyous.

“How can we celebrate such a holiday while… people are still without their freedom, still waiting to be liberated?” asked Mai Albini. His grandfather Chaim Peri was taken hostage on October 7.

Hundreds took their discontent to the street, burning a symbolic seder table in protest outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s house in the evening of April 22.

“He doesn’t want the hostages back because he doesn’t want the war to end or he’ll go to prison,” said protester Guy Ben Dror in the coastal town of Caesarea.

Making this Israeli-Palestinian war the last

Haggadahs sold out

Tzohar, a rabbinic group, the Hostage and Missing Family Forum and President Isaac Herzog have all urged families to leave an empty chair at their seder table, with the picture of a hostage on it.

“There is great hardship” this Passover, said Tzohar’s head rabbi, David Stav.

“Even at the most traditional seder night, the practice is that we also mention that which is missing and difficult.”

The Hostage and Missing Family Forum published a special edition of the Haggadah that “integrates new hopes, and introduces inspiring messages of contemporary spirit”.

It contains contributions from hostages’ relatives, a former chief rabbi of Israel, and Rita, a prominent Iranian-Israeli singer.

It has sold more than 2,50,000 copies in Israel and abroad, said Itay Shenberger, who heads the Haggadah project.

“It’s basically all the stock we had,” he said. The proceeds go to the forum’s efforts to secure the hostages’ release.

Wander in the desert

Many families will mark Passover away from home, driven out by fighting between Israel and militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah that has turned northern and southern border communities into ghost towns.

Around 60,000 Israelis from the north and almost an equal number from southern Israel remain internally displaced, according to official figures.

Hotels still house more than 26,000 displaced, many of whom will hold seders there.

Kibbutz Beeri, one of the hardest hit communities in the October 7 attack, will hold a communal seder in the Tel Aviv plaza that has become the epicentre of the hostage protests.

Nisan Zeevi, an entrepreneur from Kfar Giladi kibbutz near the Lebanese border, said his family has been “uprooted from our homes” for more than half a year.

Political leaders have given them no hint as to when they might return, he said.

“We’re not celebrating Passover in a normal way,” Mr. Zeevi said. Like the biblical Israelites, he added, this year they will “wander in the desert”.