captives

Thousands of Israeli protesters in Tel Aviv have again called for the return of captives held in Gaza and an immediate ceasefire, while hundreds of thousands of pro-Palestine supporters gathered in Rome denouncing the Italian government’s “complicity” in the war.

Captive families and antigovernment protesters gathered in front of Israel’s army headquarters on Saturday, several hours after Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that Israeli forces had recovered the body of a Thai captive.

In a statement, the Israeli army said on Saturday morning that the body of Nattapong Pinta was retrieved from the Rafah area in southern Gaza after he was taken captive during Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum wrote on X that it “bows its head in sorrow over the murder of Nattapong Pinta”.

“The time is running out for all 55 hostages. We must bring them all home, Now!,” the group wrote on X.

The spokesperson of Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, Abu Obeida, warned that an Israeli captive, Matan Zangauker, is being held in an area targeted by the Israeli army.

He warned that if Zangauker were killed during an attempt to free him, the Israeli military would be responsible.

The captive’s mother, Einav Zangauker, speaking at the Tel Aviv protest, criticised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for neglecting those being held in Gaza.

“The military pressure is closing in on [my son] and is placing him in immediate danger. The decision to expand the ground operation comes at the cost of Matan’s life and the lives of all the hostages,” she said.

“[Netanyahu] continues to sacrifice the hostages. He is using the [Israeli military] not to protect Israel’s security, but to continue the war and protect his government.”

Police prevented activists from the NGO, Looking the Occupation in the Eye, from reaching the protest area in Tel Aviv, according to reports in the Israeli media. The activists were reportedly carrying placards protesting against Israeli war crimes and ethnic cleansing in Gaza.

אלימות מצד המשטרה, דחיפות וצעקות לעבר מפגינים הנושאים שלטים הקוראים להפסקת המלחמה.

07.06.2025 תל אביב 🎥אריק סגל pic.twitter.com/2vJ3lFkXDl

— אלימות ישראל (@Alimut_Israel) June 7, 2025

Translation: Police pushing and shouting at protesters carrying signs calling for an end to the war.

During the Hamas attack, which killed 1,139 people in southern Israel, the group abducted 251 people; following a series of prisoner-for-captive exchanges with the Israeli government, the group are currently holding 55 captives in Gaza, a number of whom are dead.

Israel’s war on Gaza has now killed at least 54,772 Palestinians and injured 125,834 others, Gaza’s Health Ministry reported.

‘Enough to the massacre of Palestinians’

In the meantime, across Europe, pro-Palestine demonstrators called for an end to the Israeli genocidal assault in Gaza.

In Rome, hundreds of thousands of people marched through the city in a protest called by opposition parties slamming the government’s “complicity” in the war.

The leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, Elly Schlein, called the turnout “an enormous popular response” in opposition to Israel’s actions in the besieged and bombarded enclave.

The demonstration was “to say enough to the massacre of Palestinians, to say enough to the crimes of Netanyahu’s far-right government” and to show the world “another Italy”, Schlein told reporters.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has come under increasing pressure to take a stronger stance on the war in Gaza as she has backed Israel and Netanyahu throughout, while admitting difficult conversations with the Israeli leader of late.

In the British capital, London, antigovernment demonstrators held placards demanding “Cut war, not welfare.”

Speaking at the Whitehall rally, former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said with the “abominable, deliberate starvation of children in Gaza and the genocide that’s inflicted against the Palestinian people”, a world of “peace” was needed.

“We need a world of peace that will come through the vision of peace, the vision of disarmament and the vision of actually challenging the causes of war, which leads to the desperation and the refugee flows of today,” he said.

Pro-Palestine protests were also held Saturday in Denmark, Sweden, and Germany, where demonstrators raised banners calling for an end to the Israeli genocide against Palestinians.

Hostages and Missing Families Forum called for a ‘return to the negotiating table’.

Families of Israeli captives held in Gaza have intensified their criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu amid large protests across the country, as the expanded military ground offensive and deadly bombardment in the Palestinian territory put the release of their loved ones at risk.

On Saturday, protesters took to the streets in Tel Aviv, Shar HaNegev Junction, Kiryat Gat, and Jerusalem, with members of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum accusing the Israeli government of prioritising its war over securing the return of their relatives.

“We demand that the decision-makers return to the negotiating table and not leave it until an agreement is reached that will bring them all back,” the group said in a statement on Saturday.

Among those speaking at a rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday was Einav Zangauker, the mother of captive Matan Zangauker, who directly addressed Netanyahu: “Tell me, Mr Prime Minister: How do you go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning. How do you look in the mirror knowing that you’re abandoning 58 hostages?”

The mounting anger among families has only deepened in recent days following Netanyahu’s nomination of Major General David Zini as the next head of the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency.

Zini has reportedly voiced opposition to any deal to bring an end to Israel’s war on Gaza, telling colleagues during Israeli military meetings: “I oppose hostage deals. This is a forever war,” according to Israel’s Channel 12.

“The families of the kidnapped are outraged by the words of Major General Zini. If the publication is true, these are shocking and condemnable words coming from someone who will be the one to decide the fate of the kidnapped men and women,” the forum said in a statement on Friday.

“Appointing a Shin Bet chief who puts Netanyahu’s war before the abduction of the kidnapped is tantamount to committing a crime and doing injustice to the entire people of Israel,” the group said.

Netanyahu’s decision to appoint Zini came just one day after Israel’s Supreme Court found his attempt to fire outgoing Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar to be “unlawful”, citing a conflict of interest tied to Netanyahu’s ongoing corruption trial.

Despite the court ruling that Netanyahu could not appoint a replacement, he proceeded with the appointment of Zini anyway.

The attorney general later warned that the prime minister had defied legal guidance and tainted the appointment process.

The criticism comes as Netanyahu still faces an international arrest warrant request from the International Criminal Court over war crimes committed during the Gaza war.

To prioritise the release of the captives in Gaza, or to continue fighting what critics are calling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “forever war” – that is the question increasingly dividing Israel.

Israel’s government, laser-focused on the idea of a total victory against Hamas in Gaza, appears to be opting for the latter.

And that is only increasing the criticism Netanyahu has received since October 2023, firstly for his government’s failure to stop the October 7 attack, and then for failing to end a now 19-month war, or provide a clear vision for what the “day after” in Gaza will look like.

Netanyahu’s decision in March to unilaterally end a ceasefire instead of continuing with an agreement that would have brought home the remaining captives has widened the cracks within Israeli society, as opponents realised that the likelihood of the captives leaving Gaza alive was becoming more remote.

In recent weeks, a wave of open letter writing from within military units has emerged protesting the government’s priorities.

The discontent has also gained traction with the public. Earlier this month, thousands of Israelis gathered outside the Ministry of Defence in Tel Aviv to protest against Netanyahu’s decision to call up a further 60,000 reservists as part of his escalation against the bombed out and besieged Palestinian enclave of Gaza, where his forces have already killed more than 52,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children.

In mid-April, current and former members of the air force, considered one of Israel’s elite units, also released a letter, claiming the war served the “political and personal interests” of Netanyahu, “and not security ones”.

Prompted by the air force, similar protests came from members of the navy, elite units within the military and Israel’s foreign security agency, Mossad.

Political and personal interests 

Accusations that Netanyahu is manipulating the war for his own personal ends predate the breaking of the ceasefire.

In the minds of his critics, the longer the war continues, the longer Netanyahu feels he can defend himself against the numerous threats to his position and even his freedom.

In addition to facing trial on numerous counts of corruption dating back to 2019, he also faces calls to hold an inquiry into the government’s political failings before the October 7 attack.

Netanyahu also faces accusations that members of his office have allegedly been taking payment from Qatar – the Gulf state has previously dismissed the allegations as a “smear campaign” intended to hinder efforts to mediate an end to the conflict.

The continuation of the war allows Netanyahu to distract from those issues, while maintaining a coalition with far-right parties who have made it clear that any end to the war without total victory – which increasingly appears to include the ethnic cleansing of Gaza – would result in their departure from government, and Netanyahu’s likely fall.

And so there are questions about whether Netanyahu’s announcement of a further escalation in Gaza, including the occupation of territory and displacement of its population, will mark an end to the conflict, or simply bog Israel down in the kind of forever war that has so far been to Netanyahu’s benefit.

‘I don’t know if they’re capable of occupying the territory,” former US Special Forces commander, Colonel Seth Krummrich of international security firm Global Guardian told Al Jazeera, “Gaza is just going to soak up people, and that’s before you even think about guarding northern Israel, confronting Iran or guarding the Israeli street,” he said, warning of the potential shortfall in reservists.

“It’s also competing with a tide of growing [domestic] toxicity. When soldiers don’t return home, or don’t go, that’s going to tear at the fabric of Israeli society. It plays out at every dinner table.”

Staying at home 

Israeli media reports suggest that part of that toxicity is playing out in the number of reservists simply not showing up for duty.

The majority of those refusing service are thought to be “grey refusers”. That is, reservists with no ideological objection to the mass killings in Gaza, but rather ones exhausted by repeated tours, away from their families and jobs to support a war with no clear end.

Official numbers of reservists refusing duty are unknown. However, in mid-March, the Israeli national broadcaster, Kan, ran a report disputing official numbers, which claimed that more than 80 percent of those called up for duty had attended, suggesting that the actual figure was closer to 60 percent.

“There has been a steady increase in refusal among reservists,” a spokesperson for the organisation New Profile, which supports people refusing enlistment, said. “However, we often see sharp spikes in response to specific shifts in Israeli government policy, such as the violation of the most recent ceasefire or public statements by officials indicating that the primary objective of the military campaign is no longer the return of hostages and ‘destruction of Hamas’, as initially claimed, but rather the occupation of Gaza, and its ethnic cleansing.”

Also unaddressed is growing public discontent over the ultra-religious Haredi community, whose eight-decade exemption from military service was deemed illegal by the Supreme Court in June of last year.

Despite the shortfall in reservists reporting for duty and others having experienced repeated deployments, in April, the Supreme Court requested an explanation from Netanyahu – who relies upon Haredi support to maintain his coalition – as to why its ruling had not been fully implemented or enforced.

Throughout the war, Netanyahu’s escalations, while often resisted by the captives’ families and their allies, have been cheered on and encouraged by his allies among the far-right, many of whom claim a biblical right to the homes and land of Palestinians.

The apparent conflict between the welfare of the captives and the “total victory” promised by Netanyahu has run almost as long as the conflict itself, with each moment of division seemingly strengthening the prime minister’s position through the critical support of the ultranationalist elements of his cabinet.

Netanyahu’s position has led to conflict with politicians, including his own former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. While Gallant wasn’t opposed to the war in principle – his active support for Netanyahu eventually led to him joining Netanyahu in facing an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for war crimes – his prioritisation of the captives put him at odds with the prime minister.

The divide over priorities has meant that civility between the government and the captives’ families has increasingly gone out the window, with Netanyahu generally avoiding meeting families with loved ones still captive in Gaza, and far-right politicians engaging in shouting matches with them during meetings in parliament.

Division within Israeli society was not new, Professor Yossi Mekelberg of Chatham House told Al Jazeera, “but wars and conflicts deepen them”.

“Now we have a situation where some people have served anywhere up to 400 days in the army [as reservists], while others are refusing to serve at all and exploiting their political power within the coalition to do so,” Mekelberg added.

“Elsewhere, there are ministers on the extreme right talking about ‘sacrificing’ the hostages for military gain,” something Mekelberg said many regarded as running counter to much of the founding principles of the country and the Jewish faith.

“There’s such toxicity in public discourse,” Mekelberg continued, “We see toxicity against anyone who criticises the war or the prime minister, division between the secular and the religious, and then even divisions within the religious movements.”