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Released hostage and families of those still captive join thousands at rally marking 100 days since Oct. 7
(New York Jewish Week) – An Israeli child who was freed from Hamas captivity and relatives of those still held hostage addressed a crowd of thousands outside the United Nations at a rally marking 100 days since the terror group’s Oct. 7 invasion of Israel.
The rally featured Israeli and American flags and the singing of Israel’s national anthem, “Hatikvah.” Speeches mentioned Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza. But most speakers — including New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Sen. Chuck Schumer — focused their remarks on the plight of the hostages.
Hila Rotem Shoshani, 13, who was taken hostage from Kibbutz Be’eri, implored the crowd to keep pushing for the hostages’ release. Shoshani was taken captive along with her mother and a friend, and was released in an exchange deal in late November that saw more than 100 hostages go free. Organizers said her speech was the first by a former Israeli captive in the U.S.
“Life as a hostage in Gaza is not life, it is hell. I came all the way here to ask the whole world to help us bring back all of the hostages,” she said. “We can’t leave them there. Their families are waiting for them. Bring them home, please.”
In addition to carrying flags, attendees wore stickers saying, “Today is day 100,” and pins showing photos of the captives. Signs in Hebrew said, “100 days of hell,” and in English, “Let my people go.” At the start of the rally, participants held a moment of silence for the hostages for 100 seconds.
Volunteers in Midtown East’s Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza sold sweatshirts and beanies that said “Bring them home” to raise money for the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, one of the central groups advocating for the captives and an organizer of the rally. Organizers estimated that the demonstration drew 2,500 people.
Yair Moses, whose father, Gadi Moses, 79, is held hostage, described his anguish, saying he had been unable to eat or sleep since his father was taken. His voice broke at times during his speech.
“There are other elderly men there, like my father. No one knows if they will be able to recover from this, physically or mentally,” Moses said. “There are young women there. We have already heard witness accounts that tell of the horrors they have gone through and are still going through.”
He added, “Time is running out, and the longer they stay there the greater the risk to their lives.”
Demonstrators rally in support of Hamas hostages near the U.N., Jan. 12, 2024. (Luke Tress)
The demonstration was held in place of weekly Friday morning gatherings outside the home of U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres on behalf of the hostages. The rally kicked off a series of events in support of the hostages that will be held throughout the city over the weekend.
From Friday afternoon through Saturday night, an hourglass installation will sit in Times Square symbolizing that “time is running out” — a replica of a display in Tel Aviv.
On Sunday morning, the 100th day since Oct. 7, a “100 Days March” will take place in Central Park. Activists have been holding weekly Sunday running sessions in the park, part of a campaign in New York and other cities dubbed “Run For Their Lives.” Participants in the events will hold photos of the hostages and wear yellow ribbons, a symbol of the captives. The New York run will begin at Central Park West and 90th Street.
Also on Sunday, a separate event lasting most of the day in Washington Square Park will feature musicians playing songs at a yellow piano open to the public in honor of Alon Ohel, a 22-year-old pianist who is being held hostage.
In addition to Hochul and Schumer, a range of public officials, rabbis and Jewish organizational leaders from across the city attended Friday’s rally. The event was co-sponsored by a wide array of U.S. Jewish groups.
Hochul said she had been devastated during a visit to Kfar Aza, one of the communities hardest hit in Hamas’ attack, shortly after Oct. 7. She voiced support for Israel’s campaign against Hamas and decried the lack of attention to hostages in the public sphere.
“Why are not people across this world demanding the freedom of these hostages?” Hochul asked. “Where is the outrage? Where’s the daily coverage of the suffering of the hostages and their families?”
She continued, “I want them brought home now and I want the rest of the world to start saying the same thing because it is barbaric and inhumane to hold them one day longer.”
Demonstrators rally in support of Hamas hostages near the U.N., Jan. 12, 2024. (Luke Tress)
The crowd was composed largely of American Jews and included delegations from local Jewish high schools. Some attendees cried and embraced during the speeches. Jewish-Israeli singer Shimon Smith performed the song “Nigmar” (Hebrew for “It’s over”) by Israeli star Idan Amedi, the “Fauda” singer and actor who was badly injured in combat in Gaza this week. Amedi rose to prominence in 2010 with the song “Warrior’s Pain,” about a combat soldier struggling with PTSD.
Ellen Muss and Laura Green attended the rally holding milk cartons with images of the Hamas captives, part of an awareness campaign recalling efforts to locate missing persons. Muss’ carton bore the image of Kfir Bibas, the redheaded baby taken by Hamas who remains held in Gaza and who has become a symbol of the captives.
“We felt a very strong attachment to the hostages and it’s just keeping the awareness alive for everybody that it’s almost 100 days,” Muss said. She was in Israel several weeks ago and visited “Hostages Square” in Tel Aviv, an installation in support of the captives next to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, where she met the sister of hostage Omri Miran and showed her photos of the milk carton campaign in New York.
“She was so touched to know that we’re still thinking about them,” Muss said. “This could have been you, your sister, your grandmother, and that’s what we have to tell people.”
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The post Released hostage and families of those still captive join thousands at rally marking 100 days since Oct. 7 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
The post Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
The post Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
The post US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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