Previously, the US special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, met in Tel Aviv with relatives of the hostages. Witkoff was received under applause and “Bring her home now” calls on the “Square of the Geisel” by hundreds of people. Then he came together in a neighboring building with relatives of the hostages.
After the meeting, the forum of hostage families, the most important advocacy representatives of the relatives, said that Witkoff had “personally” agreed to stand up for the release of the remaining hostages together with US President Donald Trump.
The war in the Gaza Strip was triggered by Hamas’s brutal major attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. According to Israeli information, 1219 people were killed, 251 people were dragged into the Gaza Strip as hostages. 49 hostages are still held there, at least 27 of them are dead according to the army.
Yotam Cohen, the brother of the 21-year-old Nimrod Cohen dragged by Hamas, told the AFP news agency on Saturday: “The war must end. The Israeli government will not end it voluntarily.” It would therefore have to be “stopped,” he said with a view to important allies like the USA. Witkoff had already met with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Thursday.
Since then, Israel has massively military in the Gaza Strip in response to the Hamas attack. According to the Hamas authorities, which cannot be confirmed independently, more than 60,300 people have been killed so far. After almost 22 months of war, the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is devastating. More than a hundred aid organizations recently warned of a “mass starvation” in the Palestinian area.
The Hamas and an allied militant Palestinian group had published videos in the past few days that showed starved and weakened hostages in the Gaza Strip. A video of the 24-year-old Evyatar David caused horror on Saturday: The young man’s recordings, who is emaciated in a tunnel, were cut together with pictures of emaciated Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
David’s family accused Hamas of intentionally hung up the young man for propaganda purposes. “The Hamas uses our son as a living test object in a hideous hunger campaign,” said his family.
