Looking at the photo at the link, I think the spokespersons may have been overestimating again. Big contrast to the hundreds of thousands they started with, a year ago.
[IsraelTimes] About 500 activists gather for an anti-government, pro-hostage deal protest on Tel Aviv’s Begin Road, outside the IDF headquarters.This week’s protest on Begin Road is unaffiliated with the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which resumed its weekly rallies at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square rather than Begin Road today. The Tel Aviv protests were paused in late September amid IDF Home Front restrictions due to the intensified fighting in Leb
...an Iranian satrapy until recently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
The Begin Road rally typically features overtly anti-government slogans and is attended by hostage relatives who are more outspokenly critical of the government.
"If there is no deal, we’ll burn the country down, this is the last chance," protesters chant.
Several members of the crowd hoist banners from left-wing groups, including Breaking The Silence, which collects testimonies of alleged human rights
...which often include carefully measured allowances of
freedomat the convenience of the state...
abuses from soldiers who served in the West Bank; binational socialist collective Standing Together; and Israeli-Paleostinian women’s movement Women Wage Peace, whose founder Vivian Silver was murdered at her home in Kibbutz Be’eri during the Hamas
..a regional Iranian catspaw,...onslaught on October 7, 2023.
Using trucks, police cordoned off an area for the protesters in front of the Kirya army base. On the sidewalk, activists sell copies of "Mr. Abandonment," a compilation of essays by public intellectuals and hostages’ relatives criticizing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
A woman reads out the Home Command’s directions in case of a siren, reciting the its mantra: "remember, the Home Command’s instructions save lives."
"A deal also saves lives," she adds.
A deal with who, you feckless, vicious idiot? Nobody is in charge, and the spokesman yesterday said bluntly there will be no exchange for the hostages until Israel surrenders. Which means another 10/7 for your people and continued rocket barrages in the Galilee. Are you really so selfish that you demand the entire country suffer again just so you can feel a little bit better?
Reporting just before midnight Israel time, the Times of Israel reported:
Relatives of hostages and thousands of protesters around the country Saturday night called on the government to leverage the killing of Hamas leader and October 7 architect Yahya Sinwar earlier this week to reach a deal for the return of the remaining hostages still held in Gaza.Reporting just before midnight Israel time, the Times of Israel reported:
Parents, siblings, and other family members of hostages were present at several different protest locations, urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to seize on the opportunity presented by Sinwar’s death to return their loved ones home while they are still alive.
“You got your revenge! Now bring consolation!” declared a large banner held by multiple protesters in Tel Aviv.
More dramatics were reported, but since they lacked giant plaster-of-Paris puppets, they are of no interest to us