Live updates: Israel strikes Lebanon and Gaza as wars with Hamas, Hezbollah continue

Huge crowds of protesters gathered in several cities across Israel Saturday, demanding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government make the return of hostages in Gaza their top priority.

In Tel Aviv, people protested outside the Israel Defense Forces’ headquarters, blocking traffic and chanting anti-government slogans.

Eran Nissan, a peace activist from the progressive Israeli group Mehazkim, has been attending anti-government rallies since January last year. On Saturday, he was handing out T-shirts and stickers with derogatory messages about Israel’s far-right security minister Itamar Ben Gvir.

Nissan said a ceasefire-for-hostages deal was the central demand of the protests. “The issue of hostages is the first, the second and the third priority,” he told CNN, adding that he believed the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar on Wednesday presented an opportunity to finally agree to a deal.

“There’s a solid majority and consensus in the Israeli society on this, 105 hostages have (already) been brought back in a deal,” he said, in a reference to the weeklong ceasefire and hostage exchange that took place last November.

There are 101 hostages still held in Gaza, Israeli authorities say, but as many as one-third of them are thought to be dead.

He added that he believed the current government had an interest in prolonging the war.

“They know that once the war is over, they will have to answer questions about how they were complicit in bringing Israel to the October 7 (terror attack), and that there is going to be a national inquiry, and that there is going to be a demand for elections. And any poll that you see right now shows they’re going to be hit hard,” he said.

The large-scale protests Saturday were among the first in Israel since the government banned large gatherings citing security concerns following the October 1 Iranian ballistic missile attack, which Iran said was a response to the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.