Witkoff at Hostage Square: Majority of Israeli and Gazan public want hostages returned

“There is hardship and shortage, but no starvation. Once we refute this Hamas claim, we can continue negotiations to end the war and bring back all the hostages,” Witkoff said.

US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff spoke with hostage families for several hours on Saturday after arriving at Hostage Square in Tel Aviv.

The majority of the Israeli public wants the kidnapped people home, and the majority of the Gazan public wants the kidnapped people back, because they want the Strip to be restored, Witkoff told the families.

Witkoff told the families that he came to personally assess the situation in Gaza and to ensure that humanitarian aid is being provided. He said that while there is hardship and food shortages, there is no starvation in Gaza.

He said, according to Israeli media, that once the claim of starvation is refuted, negotiations can continue to end the war and return all the hostages.

Hostage Families erected a symbolic barbed wire fence compound to stand inside in protest for a hostage-ceasefire deal on Saturday morning, following the publication of two videos of hostages held in Gaza by terrorist organizations on Thursday and Friday.

Hamas’s propaganda videos over the past two days illustrate that the Israelis in captivity are living through a Holocaust, hostage demonstration leader and mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, Einav Zangauker, said on X/Twitter Saturday.

“My Matan is living through a Holocaust,” she lamented. “The videos released over the past two days of the hostages are breaking us.”

“Never again is now!” she declared. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum urged the Israeli and US governments to look their loved ones in the eyes, and called for a comprehensive deal to release the hostages and end the war immediately.

“The danger to their lives is tangible and immediate. The risk of losing those deceased is growing. Stop this nightmare and bring them out of the tunnels home!”

Gaza terror groups publish videos of hostages

Palestinian Islamic Jihad published a video of Rom Braslavski on Thursday, and Hamas published a video of Evyatar David on Friday.

In the propaganda videos, the two appeared to be emaciated. The Braslavski family said they were “deeply shaken” by the footage.

At the demonstration, Yael Adar, mother of Tamir Adar, said that after watching the videos, she could not breathe.

“Sights of skin and bones, and my son doesn’t even get the right to burial. Get the living hostages out before they’re in my situation. The living won’t survive, they won’t find the dead… We are in the destruction of the Third Temple! Those who fast tomorrow should fast for the future to come!”

“People talk a lot about what is happening in Gaza, about hunger, and I want to ask everyone who spoke about hunger: Did you see our Rom? He is not receiving food, he is not receiving medicine. He has simply been forgotten there,” the family shared in a statement.

‘A million punches’ to the heart

In response to the video of David, his sister Yaelah said: “Anyone who saw the video now knows the severity and the physical condition Evyatar is in, which felt like a million punches to my heart.”

“You all saw how he looks, the hunger, his physical condition. Hamas is starving people, not Israel,” former hostage Omer Wenkert said of the video showing David. “While I lost 37 kilograms, I didn’t see my captors lose a single kilo. Hamas is stealing the supplies.”

Wenkert was held alongside David in a narrow tunnel for 250 days before he was released.