Tel Aviv (AFP) – Israelis rally in Tel Aviv to call on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to accept a truce deal with Hamas and the release of hostages. “End this war. Save all the hostages. End this horror and bring our loved ones back home,” says Yehuda Cohen, whose son, Nimrod Cohen, was taken by Hamas on October 7. Gaza’s bloodiest-ever war began following Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures. Israel estimates that 128 of the 250 hostages abducted by militants on October 7 remain in Gaza, including 35 whom the military says are dead. Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel has conducted a retaliatory offensive that has killed at least 34,735 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
