Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu campaigned Thursday at Tel Aviv’s Hatikva Market, walking among the stalls surrounded by police and security personnel.
During the visit, relatives of hostages and October 7 victims tried to approach him but were held back by police. They had come to deliver a message: “Anyone who had a hand on the wheel on October 7 needs to go home.”
Among those kept away were Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan returned from captivity; Michel Ilouz, whose son Guy was abducted to Gaza on the morning of Simchat Torah and murdered in captivity days later, and whose body was returned in a hostage deal; and Gil Dickmann, whose cousin Carmel Gat was abducted alive and murdered in captivity.
Earlier on Thursday, a group of October 7 survivors and bereaved families announced that they would be out on election day “to call on citizens to remember at the ballot box the murdered, the fallen, and the hostages, and what we went through as a state and as a people.”
“Citizens of Israel, remember our loved ones at the ballot box,” they said in a statement. “The time has come for the people of Israel to have their say.”
The group includes Yocheved Lifshitz, a returned hostage whose husband, Oded, was abducted alive and murdered in captivity; Yona Adam, whose daughter Mapal was murdered at the Nova festival; and Hadas Calderon, whose mother, Carmela Dan, and niece, Noya, were murdered on October 7, and whose children Sahar and Erez returned from captivity.
Also taking part are Devorah Shani, whose son Ido, a soldier, fell defending the Gaza border communities; Danny Elgarat, whose brother Itzik was abducted alive and murdered in captivity; Noam Alon, whose brother Dor Sadeh, a soldier, fell in battle in Kfar Aza; and Noam Peri, whose father, Chaim, was abducted alive and murdered in captivity. Dickmann and Ilouz are also part of the effort.
