There are dozens of people in Israel They haven’t slept in weeks. They are mobilized day and night, devising new ways to make their cause heard loudly. They sacrifice their sleep by imagining the place where their loved ones will sleep. Since October 7, no one knows how the people sleep 240 Israeli citizens kidnapped by Hamas. Their families They have become their voices, a reminder to their government that, although life within their borders has returned to normal, those 240 people have not yet returned home. Until they sleep in their own bed, their relatives will not remain silent. This Saturday they completed a five day march at the doors of the office of the prime minister of Israel, Binyamin Netanyahu. The politician’s silence forces them to speak louder.
“It seems that no one from the government “is doing nothing to bring them back home,” he says. Adi, who has come from the north of Israel to support the families. “Why doesn’t anyone talk about this?” she denounces to this newspaper. In the background, several relatives of the hostages address the public that has accompanied them in the last month and a half. “We have been walking non-stop for five days and my legs and shoulders hurt and everything hurts, but nothing hurts like my heart hurts, which hurts me very, very much,” Orin, the mother of the hostage Eden Zacharia, acknowledged from the stage. “Even if we need to walk to Gaza, we will walk to Gaza; “Wherever we need to go, we will go, we will not give up our children,” he has defended against some 30,000 people, who then went to Tel Aviv to meet with some members of the war cabinet. The government bowed to pressure and later announced that the meeting would take place on Monday.
Only 4% trust
A song plays loudly on the speakers. “I’m going back home, tell the world I’m coming home”, sings Skylar Gray in ‘Coming home’. These dozens of people, supported by hundreds more across the country, have become the resistance against a prime minister who does not talk about them. “It is not a political issue, it is the lives of these people,” he defends. Yael Bardi, who has marched from Tel Aviv with the families. It’s 72 kilometers. In her hand, she carries the portrait of her friend’s mother, Margalit Berta Mozes. At 77 years old, she was kidnapped on October 7. Although she was part of the protests against judicial reform, she defends that this movement “is not about Netanyahu.” But, beyond the return of the captives, Bardi, like many others present at this massive protest, trust that the controversial prime minister did not reach the end of the war in the position.
“He he has to leave his position and we have to have another government; “That is my hope and that of many others,” defends Telaviví Abraham, of Sephardic origin. Binyamin Netanyahu’s credibility with the Israeli public has taken a significant hit since October 7. A new survey by Bar Ilan University has shown that less than 4% of Israeli Jews trust the prime minister as the most reliable source of information about the war against Hamas, which has killed 16,000 people in Gaza and 1,200 in Israel. In the months before the escalation, the popularity of the Likud leader was already very eroded for his government’s judicial reform initiative.
“A cockroach”
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At the doors of the prime minister’s office, Danielle shows her rejection of Netanyahu’s cabinet. “We have a, I don’t know if you can call it, government, those people who they are taking all the money “But they don’t do anything,” he says in perfect Spanish, with a Latin American accent. “Especially the head of the government, who he only thinks about protecting himselfin the future and gives money to the religious“, so that they can later give him support,” denounces this Jerusalemite who has joined the final phase of the march. From the streets, Danielle’s words are echoed in the main tribunes of the country. A month after the Hamas attack, the newspaper Israel Hayom, openly pro-Netanyahucalled for his resignation in a major change of tone at a media outlet founded at one point by the Israeli leader to support his political ambitions.
“He wants the war to continue because he has already said that responsibilities would be resolved as soon as he finished, but, as long as it continues and he stays, people will get used to it,” Danielle criticizes. A survey published this Thursday by Channel 12 has confirmed what appears to be the definitive collapse of Netanyahu. If elections were to take place now, the coalition led by him would crash with just 45 seats compared to the 64 it has now. But no one is clear that this is the end of Bibi. “He’s like a cockroach, he survives everything, but I hope he leaves after this; no one wants me to be here”, confirms Adi. Danielle shares the same desire and the same mistrust. “There are many people who are going to support him because people don’t learn anything; “He knows how to speak very well, but, when it comes to governing, he knows nothing,” he notes.