‘We Want Our Life Back’: Tel Aviv -Demonstrants celebrate potentially -Fires with Hamas

Tel Aviv – With a heart-shaped balloon in her hand, Gili Coheb-Taguri, a 49-year-old material scientist who is wearing a Trump mask and a suit that matches the president’s tailors, posed for the series of cameras and smartphones.

“This? It is an origami mask,” she told an inquiring passer -by. “And yes, I made it myself.”

COHEB-TAGURI was one of the thousands that came to hostage on Saturday evening, the courtyard in Tel Aviv that has become the location of weekly protests that the Israeli government demanded that the return of hostages was abducted by Hamas after 7 October 2023.

The rally, the first to be held after Hamas had accepted it -the fires of President Trump, was only one of the comparable events that took place throughout Israel. Although the mood was gloomy, it still felt more hopeful than most other protests that COHEB Taguri had attended in the last two years.

“The reason I was wearing this suit is to thank Trump for what he did. People have been so depressed and when they see Trump here, they smile,” she said through the mask before she took it out.

“The most important point for us are the hostages,” she said. “It’s two years ago and we want them back. We want our lives back.”

The US 20-point plan, which was drawn up by the Trump government with input from Israel and a number of Arabic and Muslim countries, would release the Palestinian militant group all 48 hostages who still have it in his guardianship and the reins of Gaza to a Technocratic, Palestijn.

Israel will in turn give back 1,700 prisoners from Gaza and 250 prisoners who extend lifelong penalties in the Israeli prisons. It will also start a phased withdrawal of the Gaza Strip and will not occupy or annex the enclave. No resident of Gaza will be forced to leave, and those who want to return are encouraged to do this.

Like many in the crowd here on Saturday evening, COHEB-TAGURI and her husband, the 52-year-old Yossi Taguri, has credited Trump for doing what the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could not do: broker a deal that the hostages would bring back.

“We are not our government. The importance of Bibi and our interests are not matched,” Taguri said, with the nickname of Netanyahu.

Critics accuse Netanyahu of expanding the war and to succumb to the demands of extremist ministers in the coalition of his government to stay in power.

Taguri expected Netanyahu to find a way to sabotage the deal again.

“How often have we been in this situation, where everyone agrees and then something happens?” he said. “He will find a way to blow it up.”

In a video report on Saturday evening, Netanyahu said that he hoped to announce the return of all hostages “in the coming days” and that the Israeli army “” would maintain control over all dominant areas deep in the comic “during the first phase of the agreement.

He insisted that his scorched earth strategy in Gaza Die killed more than 67,000 people, say the health authorities in the enclave, and Gaza brought a moon-like landscape of debris brought the change in Hamas’s position.

Hamas had agreed to a number of earlier proposals to end the war, including a cessation -the fires that came in January, but that Israel broke unilaterally in March.

Netanyahu said he hoped that the negotiations to complete the deal would be completed soon. After the hostage he said, “Hamas will be disarmed and Gaza will be demilitarized.”

“This will be done through the diplomatic path through the Trump plan or through the military path – near our hands,” he added.

People sing slogans and keep signs to support hostages who are still in Hamas.

(Chris McGrath / Getty images)

Hamas has said that it will only disarm in the context of handing over his weapons to a Palestinian state. It did not immediately discuss the provision to disarm in Trump’s proposal.

In a post on his social media site Saturday, Trump said: “Hamas must move quickly, otherwise all bets will be out” and he would “tolerate a delay”.

He also thanked Israel for what he said was a temporary stopping of the bombing campaign to give the deal a chance. Israel did not stop bombing: Palestinian health authorities said at least 67 people since Saturday were killed at Israeli attacks. Israeli media reported that the army was told to switch to defensive operations.

During the rally, thousands of call-and-response hymns that they have remembered of the war over the past two years.

“Bring them back!” Omer Shem shouted TOV, a hostage liberated in an earlier prisoners exchange with Hamas. The crowd reacted with a loud “Now!”

Another speaker, actor Lior Ashkenazi, started thanking Trump.

Dor Jaliff, a 35-year-old social worker, stood under the crowd and nodded at the mention of Trump. Although he did not count himself a Trump supporter (“I’m not going to run around with an American flag or things like that,” he said), he said he nevertheless appreciated the impact of the American president.

“I wish our government would regard the hostages as the top priority such as Trump. Look, I am not happy that Trump will be involved in Israel’s affairs, but at least someone does the work,” he said.

Whether the deal would continue, he said he tried to stay hopeful.

“It’s a need to be optimistic. I want to feel optimistic,” he said.

Also in the crowd, with his wife and son in tow, was the 57-year-old Mindy Rabinowitz. On his chest he wore a sticker with the number 729 – the number of days since the war started.

A head of a university, Rabinowitz, had made it a ritual to come to hostage at least once a month, but often more than that. But before the announcement of the cease -the fires on Friday, he was not sure if he would come this week. But when he heard that Hamas accepted the deal late on Friday evening, he thought differently.

“I turned to my wife and said:” Maybe we should not stay at home and watch this on TV. We have to go, “he said.

“Maybe it’s the last time we are on that square.”