Thousands of people rallied on Tel Aviv's Hostage Square on Saturday to demand the establishment of a commission of inquiry into the failures committed during the October 7 massacre in 2023, with most of the opposition's leaders present at the event.
The rally was organized by the October Council, an aggregation of families and friends of victims and survivors of the Hamas massacre, while Gadi Eisenot (head of Yashar), Naftali Bennet (B'Yachad), and Avigdor Liberman (Yisrael Beytenu) were present at the site.
Protest opens with addresses from families of victims
Yossi Marshak and Titi Aynaw opened the rally with an address to the bereaved families, the survivors of the massacre and captivity, the families of the hostages, the fighters, and those wounded in body and soul, saying, “To all of you, we want to say: our hearts are with you. We are with you; you are not alone.”
Marshak addressed the crowd in the square and said, “Look around you. Look how many people are here. After three years of pain. After three years of struggle. After three years during which they tried to deny what happened to all of us, tried to normalize, exhaust, despair, and tell us that we should give up and get used to it, we are here to say: we will not give up on the truth.”
At the opening of the rally, Titi Aynaw addressed the families in the square, also mentioning the families who joined the circle of bereavement in recent days.
“All of us here tonight share pain. With a broken heart, yesterday we heard the crushing words ‘cleared for publication.’ Our hearts are with the family of Staff Sergeant Ron Yonatan Roitman and with the family of Sergeant Yuval Shai Swilam, who were murdered in a terrorist attack,” Aynaw said.
“We share in the grief of the families whose loved ones took their own lives because they could no longer bear the psychological pain. May their memory be blessed,” Aynaw continued
"This evening is called ‘For Them. For Us.’ For those we lost. For those who returned. For those who fought and are still fighting. And for the country we want to leave for our children," she said.
Rabbi Elchanan Danino, the father of Ori Danino, who was abducted from the Nova festival and murdered in Hamas captivity, delivered his remarks demanding the establishment of a state commission of inquiry. Shouts of "Shame" erupted from the crowd, amplifying his criticism of the leadership and its evasion of investigating the massacre.
This is a developing story.