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Protest tents spring up in Tel Aviv to push for hostages’ return
TEL AVIV (JTA) — For most of this year, Kaplan Street in the center of this city was known as the site of mass protests. Slogans and signs lined the avenue and, every Saturday night, tens or hundreds of thousands of Israelis would gather to demonstrate against the government.
Since Hamas’ Oct. 7 invasion of Israel, in which thousands were killed and wounded, and hundreds taken captive, those protests have ceased. But another one, smaller, more somber and subdued, has taken their place.
This new protest also opposes the government, but instead of calling for a change to the legislative agenda, it’s demanding that Israel’s leaders do more to free the over 200 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. It is centered on two makeshift encampments on each side of the Kirya, Israel’s central military base and the seat of the top brass of the Israel Defense Forces. Dozens of protesters, including relatives of the hostages, stay there from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. to push for the captives’ return.
“We are here opposite the people who need to release them,” said Itzik, 73, a history teacher who declined to share his full name and had been coming to Kaplan for a few days. He is a family friend of Liri Albag, an 18-year old soldier who was taken captive while on duty at Kibbutz Nahal Oz on the Gaza border.
“I do not have the strength to volunteer with all the physical efforts,” Itzik said. “But here I am able to give something by strengthening the families with my presence.”
In the wake of the massacre, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has become increasingly unpopular, with a recent poll showing that most Israelis want him to resign after the war. But following Oct. 7 and Israel’s ensuing war against Hamas in Gaza, Israelis have also described a newfound unity of purpose following years of deepening political divisions.
The protest on Kaplan is something of an exception: Some participants call on Netanyahu to resign now, not later, and get into shouting matches with his supporters. Others are less focused on the prime minister and hope to maintain a nonpartisan call for the release of the hostages, including calling for negotiations toward their freedom, possibly as part of a prisoner exchange.
“Bibi and his gang need to go,” said Miri Lahat, 73, who was at an anti-Netanyahu demonstration on Kaplan on Sunday and has been protesting against him for seven years. “The government betrayed us twice … by getting us into this situation and failing to release the hostages.”
Hundreds of posters line the busy street in Hebrew and English, similar to the ones now wallpapering major cities across the United States. They display the word “Kidnapped” in all capital letters along with the name and photo of a hostage, and some biographical details. Several signs read, “Free the hostages now!”
Other initiatives across Israel also aim to draw attention to the hostages. Just blocks away from the tents, at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, a Shabbat table with 200 empty chairs symbolized the captive Israelis. Israeli tech workers have organized to help identify their missing fellow citizens. Family members of the hostages have held press conferences and met with the country’s leaders and other heads of state.
Itzik is one of dozens of volunteers who came to Kaplan to support the families of the hostages, in addition to hundreds of visitors who stopped by to tie yellow ribbons on their arms — an international symbol for the return of hostages. Countless cars honked to show support throughout the day.
A protester in Tel Aviv calling for the return of hostages. (Eliyahu Freedman)
Setting up a protest tent is something of a tradition in Israeli activism. The parents of Gilad Shalit, a soldier kidnapped by Hamas in 2006, set up a tent opposite the prime minister’s residence in Jerusalem and stayed there for 15 months until their son was freed in a prisoner exchange in 2011. That same year, Israelis camped out on Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard in protest of the country’s high cost of living. This year, opponents of Netayahu’s effort to weaken the judiciary briefly camped out near the country’s parliament in Jerusalem.
Dafna Sheer, a 70-year old Israeli living in Hofit, a coastal town about 25 miles north of the protest tents, said she came to Kaplan on Sunday because she is “heartbroken” by the thought that “it could have been my grandchild” who was taken captive. She also blames Netanyahu for the recent disaster and current response. “He must resign,” she said bluntly.
One of the protesters holding a sign opposite passersby was Tamar Bialik, 49, a Tel Aviv resident and member of Israel’s trance music community, which was devastated by a Hamas massacre at a rave near the Gaza border on Oct. 7. She said she went from “shiva to shiva” before arriving at the Kaplan tent to advocate for two friends who were abducted by Hamas terrorists at the music festival.
“Ilan Avraham, 56, was like a father for the Israeli trance community,” she said. “Since he was 16, he would go to trance parties every week while Moran Stela [Yanai] just had a jewelry shop at the Nova festival.”
She added that the country’s trance community has a history rooted in trauma. It blossomed, she said, to reflect “true love” after the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.
“Going to many shivas is the first time I learned where my friends live and what they do,” she said. “These details are not relevant for the trance community, which is about complete freedom.”
A group of visitors last week represented Israel’s Masorti movement, the country’s version of Conservative Judaism, and included several American rabbis who led prayers at the site. Since their visit, the 5 p.m. afternoon prayer service has become a part of the daily ritual at the camp.
“Last Tuesday, I was invited to come be with the Masorti movement, to come here and listen to people,” said Israeli-American Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie, who leads Lab/Shul in New York and was part of the group that visited on Tuesday. “We created a circle and sang songs and did a prayer for the healing and captives — then we invited anyone who wanted to do Mincha to join.”
The prayer service was one stop on Lau-Lavie’s extended trip around the country to provide pastoral care for traumatized Israelis, including a visit to a hotel where members of his own family have relocated after their kibbutz was attacked on Oct. 7.
As painful as the current moment is, Lau-Lavie said Jews throughout history have joined together to call for the return of captives.
“People need to stand together and in the absence of words, or singing, people need to know that they are not alone” he said. “The fact that we have in our archive a 2,000-year-old prayer for the release of captives shows that we have been here before.”
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As Gaza War Continues, Hamas Calls for Global Protests While Israel Marks Breakthroughs in Medical Innovation
A pro-Hamas march in London, United Kingdom, Feb. 17, 2024. Photo: Chrissa Giannakoudi via Reuters Connect
As the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas calls for global protests amid stalled Gaza ceasefire talks, Israel has broken new ground despite the ongoing conflict, achieving a major medical breakthrough in synthetic human kidney development.
The contrast illustrates a stark contrast between the priorities of Hamas, an international designated terrorist group that has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades, and Israel, the lone democracy in the Middle East that has long been a leader in tech and medical innovation.
On Wednesday, Hamas urged worldwide protests in support of Palestinians, calling on the international community “to denounce Israel’s genocidal war and starvation policy in Gaza.”
“We call for continuing and escalating the popular pressure in all cities and squares on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday … through rallies, demonstrations and sit-ins outside the embassies of the Israeli regime and its allies, particularly in the US,” the statement read.
The Palestinian terrorist group also called to expose what it described as “the terrorism of the Zio-Nazi occupation against defenseless civilians.”
Hamas’s latest move against Israel comes amid stalled indirect negotiations over a proposed 60-day ceasefire and hostage release deal, which collapsed last month after the group vowed it would not disarm unless an independent Palestinian state is established — rejecting a key Israeli demand to end the war in Gaza.
In its statement, Hamas demanded the opening of all border crossings to allow immediate aid into the war-torn enclave and urged a global condemnation of “the international community’s inaction on the Israeli crimes.”
Amid mounting international pressure to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Israel announced new measures to facilitate the delivery of aid, including temporary pauses in fighting in certain areas and the creation of protected routes for aid convoys.
Israeli officials have previously accused Hamas of diverting aid for terrorist activities and selling supplies at inflated prices to civilians, while also blaming the United Nations and other foreign organizations for enabling this diversion.
Hamas’s statement also emphasized that the “global resistance movement must continue until Israeli aggression on Gaza ends and the siege on the coastal strip is lifted.”
Meanwhile, as Israel faces escalating hostilities and the heavy toll of war, the Jewish state continues to push the boundaries of innovation and resilience, achieving new medical breakthroughs while confronting ongoing challenges.
In a major medical breakthrough, scientists at Sheba Medical Center and Tel Aviv University have successfully grown a synthetic 3D miniature human kidney in a lab using specialized stem cells derived from kidney tissue — one of the most promising advances in regenerative medicine.
Dr. Dror Harats, chairman of Sheba’s Research Authority, described this achievement as a reflection of Israel’s leading role in global medical innovation.
“Despite growing efforts to isolate Israel from international science, breakthroughs like this prove our impact is both lasting and essential,” he said.
In a landmark study, a team from Sheba’s Safra Children’s Hospital and Tel Aviv University’s Sagol Center for Regenerative Medicine created synthetic kidney organs that matured and remained stable for 34 weeks — the longest-lasting and most refined kidney organoids developed to date.
Nearly a decade ago, the research team became the first to successfully isolate human kidney tissue stem cells — the cells responsible for the organ’s development and growth.
Previous attempts to grow kidneys in a lab using general-purpose stem cells were short-lived, typically lasting only a few weeks and often producing unwanted cell types that compromised research accuracy.
However, this Israeli research team used stem cells taken directly from kidney tissue — cells that naturally develop into kidney parts — allowing them to create a much purer and more stable model with key features found in real kidneys.
This medical breakthrough could have far-reaching implications, redefining the current understanding of kidney diseases and advancing the development of innovative treatments.
Researchers believe the model could help assess how medications impact fetal kidneys during pregnancy and move science closer to repairing or replacing damaged kidney tissue with lab-grown cells.
The discovery came days after researchers from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and international partners discovered a way to boost the immune system’s cancer-fighting ability by reprogramming how T cells, which are white blood cells critical to the immune system, produce energy.
The researchers explained in a study published in the peer-reviewed Nature Communications that disabling a protein known as Ant2 in T cells greatly enhances their effectiveness against tumors.
“By disabling Ant2, we triggered a complete shift in how T cells produce and use energy,” Prof. Michael Berger of Hebrew University’s Faculty of Medicine, who co-led the study with doctorate student Omri Yosef, told the Tazpit Press Service. “This reprogramming made them significantly better at recognizing and killing cancer cells.”
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Netherlands to Push EU to Suspend Israel Trade Deal but Won’t Recognize Palestinian State ‘At This Time’
Netherlands Foreign Affairs Minister Caspar Veldkamp addresses a press conference, in New Delhi on April 1, 2025. Photo: ANI Photo/Sanjay Sharma via Reuters Connect
The Netherlands is spearheading efforts to suspend the European Union-Israel trade agreement amid rising EU criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza, while simultaneously refusing to recognize a Palestinian state, contrasting with other member states as international pressure mounts.
On Thursday, Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp announced that the Netherlands will push the EU to suspend the trade component of the EU-Israel Association Agreement — a pact governing the EU’s political and economic ties with the Jewish state.
This latest anti-Israel initiative follows a recent EU-commissioned report accusing Israel of committing “indiscriminate attacks … starvation … torture … [and] apartheid” against Palestinians in Gaza during its military campaign against Hamas, an internationally designated terrorist group.
Following calls from a majority of EU member states for a formal investigation, this report built on Belgium’s recent decision to review Israel’s compliance with the trade agreement, a process initiated by the Netherlands and led by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas.
According to the report, “there are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations” under the 25-year-old EU-Israel Association Agreement.
While the document acknowledges the reality of violence by Hamas, it states that this issue lies outside its scope — failing to address the Palestinian terrorist group’s role in sparking the current war with its bloody rampage across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israeli officials have slammed the report as factually incorrect and morally flawed, noting that Hamas embeds its military infrastructure within civilian targets and Israel’s army takes extensive precautions to try and avoid civilian casualties.
In a Dutch parliamentary debate on Gaza on Thursday, Veldkamp also announced that the government would not recognize a Palestinian state for now — a position that stands in sharp contrast to the recent moves by several other EU member states to extend recognition.
“The Netherlands is not planning to recognize a Palestinian state at this time,” the Dutch diplomat said.
“This war has ceased to be a just war and is now leading to the erosion of Israel’s own security and identity,” he continued.
This latest decision goes against the position of several EU member states, including France, which has committed to recognizing Palestinian statehood in September.
The United Kingdom has likewise indicated it will do so unless Israel acts to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and agrees to a ceasefire.
For its part, Germany said it was not planning to recognize a Palestinian state in the short term, and Italy argued that recognition must occur simultaneously with the recognition of Israel by the new entity.
Spain, Norway, Ireland, and Slovenia all recognized a Palestinian state last year.
Israel has been facing growing pressure from several EU member states seeking to undermine its defensive campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.
On Thursday, European Commission Vice President Teresa Ribera strongly condemned Israel’s actions in the war-torn enclave, describing the situation as a “grave violation of human dignity.”
“What we are seeing is a concrete population being targeted, killed and condemned to starve to death,” Ribera told Politico. “If it is not genocide, it looks very much like the definition used to express its meaning.”
Until now, the European Commission has refrained from accusing Israel of genocide, but Ribera’s comments mark one of the strongest European condemnations since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
She also called on the EU to take decisive action by considering the suspension of its trade agreement with Israel and the implementation of sanctions, while emphasizing that such measures would require unanimous approval from all member states.
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Graduate Student Unions Promoting Antisemitism, Reform Group Says
Students listen to a speech at a protest encampment at Stanford University in Stanford, California US, on April 26, 2024. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect.
Higher-education-based unions controlled by United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE) are rife with antisemitism and anti-Zionist discrimination, according to a new letter imploring the US Congress’s House Committee on Education and the Workforce to address the matter.
“Tracing its roots to communism in the 1930s, the UE is a radical, pro-Hamas labor union that has a long history of antisemitism,” the National Right to Work Foundation (NRTW), one of the US’s leading labor reform groups, wrote on July 30 in a message obtained by The Algemeiner. “The UE openly supports the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which is designed to cripple and destroy Israel economically. Today, the UE furthers its antisemitic agenda by unionizing graduate students on college campuses and using its exclusive representation powers to create a hostile environment for Jewish students. The hostile environment includes demanding compulsory dues to fund the UE’s abhorrent activities.”
NRTW went on to describe a litany of alleged injustices to which UE members subject Jewish student-employees in the US’s most prestigious institutions of higher education, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to Cornell University. At MIT, the letter said, “union officers” aided a riotous group which illegally occupied a section of campus with a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” participating in the demonstration and even denying access to campus buildings. UE members at Stanford University, meanwhile, allegedly denied religious accommodations to Jewish students who requested exemption from union dues over that branch’s supporting the BDS movement. And Cornell University UE was accused of denying religious exemptions in several cases as well and followed up the rejection with an intrusive “questionnaire” which probed Jewish students for “legally-irrelevant information.”
The situation requires federal oversight and intervention, NRTW said, including Congress’s possibly clarifying that student-employees are not traditional employees and are therefore afforded protections under sections of the Civil Rights Act which apply to the campus.
“These continuing patterns of antisemitism are illegal, immoral, and must be stopped,” the letter continued. “We encourage you to do all that is in your power to investigate and help bring an end to the UE and its affiliates’ nonstop harassment and intimidation of Jewish students … The Trump administration can also use tools available to it under Title VI and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act against colleges who work with unions to create a hostile environment for Jewish students.”
July’s letter is not the first time NRTW has publicized alleged antisemitic abuse in unions representing higher education employees.
In 2024, it represented a group of six City University of New York (CUNY) professors, five of whom are Jewish, who sued to be “freed” from CUNY’s Professional Staff Congress (PSC-CUNY) over its passing a resolution during Israel’s May 2021 war with Hamas which declared solidarity with Palestinians and accused the Jewish state of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and crimes against humanity. The group contested New York State’s “Taylor Law,” which it said chained the professors to the union’s “bargaining unit” and denied their right to freedom of speech and association by forcing them to be represented in negotiations by an organization they claim holds antisemitic views.
That same year, NRTW prevailed in a discrimination suit filed to exempt another cohort of Jewish MIT students from paying dues to the Graduate Student Union (GSU). The students had attempted to resist financially supporting GSU’s anti-Zionism, but the union bosses attempted to coerce their compliance, telling them that “no principles, teachings, or tenets of Judaism prohibit membership in or the payment of dues or fees” to the union.
“All Americans should have a right to protect their money from going to union bosses they don’t support, whether those objections are based on religion, politics, or any other reason,” NRTW said at the time.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.