Dressed in a T-shirt bearing her missing granddaughter, Roni Eshel’s, smiling face, Zehava Eshel addressed a crowd of protesters gathered in front of the Israeli military headquarters in Tel Aviv. “The country was supposed to protect her,” she said, her voice hoarse.
The Israeli military have labelled 19-year-old Roni Eshel, an IDF soldier stationed at a base near the kibbutz of Nahal Oz, as a missing person. All that the Eshel family know is that Roni last texted her mother from a friend’s phone in the early hours of Saturday 7 October, during the unprecedented incursion by Hamas militants that has so far left more than 1,300 Israelis dead.
Since then, Zehava Eshel said, the family has heard very little.
“Where is the state?” she asked, bemoaning what she said was a lack of communication from the Israeli military and the government.
Soldiers such as Roni Eshel, who was stationed near the fortified three-layer fence that surrounds the Gaza strip, were supposed to be “the eyes of the country”, her grandmother said, but no one had listened when they said they had seen unusual movements on the border, as so much of the Israeli military had been deployed on the West Bank.
“Where are the ministers – where is the prime minister?” Zehava Eshel asked. “These high-ranking officers, where are they?”
Roni Eshel is thought to be one of at least 199 hostages captured by Palestinian militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza. Her grandmother joined other families of hostages and the missing at a protest on Tuesday to demand that the government take action to free them – including potential prisoner swaps for thousands of Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli jails, as demanded by their captors.
Nearby, a tearful-looking woman clutched a sign with the words “Bring them home” written on it. Another sign on a nearby tree bearing the words “Prisoner exchange now” hung next to a large Israeli flag. The flag flapped in the wind, alongside a yellow ribbon tied around the tree trunk.
The Israeli public is fiercely divided over how the state has handled the major breach of its security, with the issue of the hostages becoming a lightning rod for criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu’s response to the crisis.
Many of the families are careful to temper their criticism, fearful that being too outspoken may hamper the government’s responsiveness to their needs. But some of their supporters, who had also gathered in Tel Aviv, said the prime minister’s decision to prioritise striking Hamas over freeing the hostages was the latest sign that he should step aside, after a combined 16 years in power.
Tzvia Shmuelvich, who served in the Israeli military during the 1973 war against a coalition of neighbouring states, said: “Even the head of the army, the chief of the Shin Bet [domestic intelligence service] said ‘we are guilty, we take responsibility, we admit we are to blame’ – that they failed. But Netanyahu, he never fails.
“A lot of people say it’s not the time for a new leader, and we say it is,” she added. “It’s not politics; every day he continues as prime minister we lose more people.”
Holding a sign bearing the words “He’s unfit” in Hebrew, she said Netanyahu was more likely to poll his supporters in his Likud party to decide what to do rather than consider the feelings of the hostages and their families.
Itamar Gavi, holding a sign that said “Guilty”, added: “I believe he’s leading Israel to a very deep, dark place.”
Other veterans of Israel’s compulsory military service joined in the criticism. “He caused the problem,” said one man, overhearing people’s complaints about the increasingly right-wing Israeli government that many on the left consider beholden to religious and extremist settler groups.
“He didn’t cause the problem, he is the problem,” said Avi Gopher. “This is the opposite of what Israel needs. Every day, every minute, that he’s in power is an issue.”
The prime minister’s response to the crisis has primarily focused on targeting Hamas, including a sustained assault on the Gaza strip that has so far left more than 3,000 people dead and 12,500 wounded. A spokesperson for Hamas’ military wing, the al-Qassam brigades, claimed earlier this week that at least 22 of the Israeli hostages have been killed in the bombardments.
The prime minister met some of the hostages’ relatives on Sunday, more than a week after the crisis began, but faced criticism that only families supportive of his party were chosen to attend.
His office, however, denied suggestions that some of the families were “planted”, saying the allegation was “false, shocking, outrageous and unacceptable”.
The Israeli government has so far fiercely opposed the idea of negotiating with Hamas to free the hostages, with some of the hostages’ relatives supporting this stance.
Tzvika Mor, who joined the meeting with Netanyahu to discuss his missing son, Eitan, told a local radio station that he favoured attacking Gaza over hostage negotiations. “We wanted to convey a national message to Netanyahu. We need to stop this whiney behaviour,” he said. “In a time of war the people of Israel have to make sacrifices, even when our children are there, and prevail.”
Far down the broad boulevard next to the military headquarters, Ori Plasse said that despite his criticisms of the security breach, he had shown up to staff a tent in support of captives’ families who do not favour negotiations.
“I think the prime minister is dreadful, he hasn’t inspired any sense of security in people,” he said. But still, he said, Netanyahu and the Israeli government should detach themselves from the demands of some of the families, and resist any public pressure to negotiate for the hostages’ freedom.
“I’m not saying they’re wrong, but I think if the government listens to their emotional reaction, the government is wrong,” said Plasse. He favoured a policy of “no negotiation, and continuing the operation to the end”, he said.
Plasse said his views were informed by his support for his wife’s family, members of a group of Israeli settlers evicted from the Gaza strip in 2005.
Of the families protesting further down the street to demand hostage negotiations, he said: “They’re parents, I don’t think they are selfish. But for them to expect the government and the IDF to put their needs first is selfish, because then others might be in this situation in future.
“This has to be the end – now has to be a wake-up call. Most Israelis are of the same opinion, they want to see Hamas wiped out.”
