by Roy Cohen at +972 Magazine
A photo began making the rounds on Israeli social media yesterday of Avichai Brodetz, whose wife and three children were kidnapped by Hamas from Kfar Aza and taken to Gaza during the Oct. 7 attack, sitting on a plastic chair outside the Israeli military headquarters in Tel Aviv. By 11 a.m. several dozen people had joined him. Within a few hours, the street was full of furious protesters, agonizing over their missing loved ones. “We are here and we won’t leave until they bring back all the hostages,” one woman said to her friend, both of them sobbing.
It is believed that at least 199 people were kidnapped by Hamas militants who broke through the Gaza fence last Saturday, as part of a surprise attack that killed over 1,400 in Israel. The Israeli army subsequently launched an assault on Gaza that has killed at least 2,383 Palestinians, and is preparing to enter the strip with thousands of troops in a large-scale ground invasion.
Glued onto a sign outside the military headquarters that read “Closed Military Zone — No Photography” was a photo of an 18-year-old abductee, Liri Elbag. Contrary to the sign’s prohibition, camera crews filled the area, and protesters spilled out onto the sidewalk and the street in front of the headquarters. A soldier tried to move the photographers away, but was unsuccessful.
At around 2:30 p.m. a truck pulled up loaded with cement blocks, and the driver began to assemble what appeared to be a wall blocking off the entrance to the building. But the protesters wouldn’t have it: led by one screaming woman, they circled the truck and refused to budge. Eventually, the driver accepted defeat and the truck drove off, accompanied by chants of “shame” from the families of the kidnapped. Others wept. It was a tiny victory for the families fuming with rage at the military establishment tasked with bringing their loved ones back home.
‘Everything we know is from videos on Telegram’
The family of Liri Elbag arrived at the protest carrying dozens of posters,..
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