TEL AVIV, July 6. /TASS/. Israelis have again taken to the streets to demand that the government immediately secure the release of hostages from Gaza and hold early elections, according to a TASS reporter.

The largest crowd traditionally gathered near the government compound in eastern Tel Aviv.

The Hostage and Missing Persons Families Forum group, one of the organizers of the protests, said the hostages have been held by Palestinian radicals for nearly nine months. Amid recent news reports about possible progress in the talks to achieve a Gaza ceasefire and the release of the hostages, their families urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take this opportunity to bring back their loved ones and accept Hamas’ conditions.

The situation in the Middle East sharply escalated following an incursion of Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip into Israel on October 7, accompanied by killings of residents of Israeli settlements near the border and taking more than 200 hostages, including children, women and elderly people. Hamas cast the attack as a response to Israeli actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Israel declared a complete siege of the Gaza Strip and started striking the enclave and parts of Lebanon and Syria. Afterward, the IDF started a ground operation in Gaza.