Nadav is tired, frustrated and haunted, yet he smiles when we meet. For 690 days, he has been waiting for the world to change, and he’s still waiting, and hoping.
Back on 7 October 2023, his father Tal was seized by Hamas and taken to Gaza. Tal is now dead – it’s not clear when he died, but the simple, brutal fact of his death is not in doubt.
What is unknown – indeed, what cannot be known – is when Tal’s body will be returned to Israel.
“My dad is still being held captive, although he is not alive. My life is stuck,” Nadav tells me. “In order to continue living and start the healing process, we need them home and we need the war to be over.”
Pic: Ilia Yefimovich/picture-alliance/dpa/AP
Around him, banners, signs and the sounds of another day of national protest. Motorways were brought to a halt, huge numbers of people went on strike, all in the name of demanding that the Israeli government do more to prioritise the return of all the hostages.
In Nadav’s mind, that means searching for compromise and negotiating a ceasefire that ends the war and allows for the return of all the hostages – believed to number 20 who are still alive, and a further 30 who have died.
“We have seen that just using military strength is not enough,” he says. “We now have to do whatever it takes, even if it’s not perfect.”
“Even if that means negotiating with Hamas?” I ask. He nods. “This war has to come to an end.”
It is a theme we hear again and again. In the crowds that pour into Hostages Square, there is almost unanimity.
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Protests in Israel ‘lack sufficient backing’
“The prime minister is acting like a tyrant,” declares one man as he marches down the street. “He doesn’t listen to us – his subjects. He just listens to the people in his cabinet who think that war is always the answer.”
Around us, we regularly see people wearing T-shirts with the slogan “Stam Wars”, written in the familiar Star Wars style.
Protesters in Tel Aviv on Tuesday. Pic: Ilia Yefimovich/picture-alliance/dpa/AP
It is a biting comment dressed up as a joke – stam is a derogatory slang word, basically meaning pointless. “Our soldiers are being sacrificed,” says Yoram, as he strolls down the road towards the square.
This, of course, is no random sample. Among the crowd are many who viscerally dislike Benjamin Netanyahu, and the truth is that his supporters would be unlikely to join this crowd.
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And yet they all want the same thing. The prime minister insists that the return of the hostages is his driving motivation, just as the people we spoke to told us that getting back the hostages was their ambition.
The difference is that Netanyahu seems unwilling to negotiate, and is convinced that the way to push Hamas into submission is to attack them relentlessly. Those on the protest, including relatives and loved ones of the hostages, are calling for talks to be placed ahead of tanks.
Is Netanyahu worried? Probably not. Just as the protesters were gathering in Hostages Square, Israel’s security cabinet was meeting to discuss the future of the war. Plans to encircle and occupy Gaza City were discussed. Proposals for a ceasefire were, apparently, not even mentioned.