The American envoy Steve Witkoff meets with Gaza’s hostage families in Tel Aviv

American envoy Steve Witkoff met on Saturday with the families of Israeli hostages still in Gaza In Tel Aviv, as fears for the survival of the captives, it grew almost 22 months in the war.

The families of the hostages protested in Tel Aviv, urging the Government of Israel to press more for the liberation of their loved ones. Witkoff, who was received with some applause and supplications of help, joined them for a closed meeting.

The videos shared online showed that Witkoff arrived when families sang “Bring them home!” And “we need your help.”

The hostages of the missing families forum confirmed the meeting, which arrived a Week after Witkoff stopped ceasing conversationsblaming Hamas’ intransigence and undertakes to find other ways to free hostages and make Gaza safe.

After the meeting, the forum issued a statement by saying that Witkoff had given them a personal commitment that he and President Trump would work to return to the remaining hostages.

“We will take your children home and hold Hamas responsible for any bad act on your part. We will do the right thing for the people of Gazan,” Witkoff said at the meeting, according to the forum.

Of the 251 hostages that were kidnapped by terrorists led by Hamas on October 7, 2023, it is believed that around 20 are alive in Gaza. Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, the second largest militant group in Gaza, published separate videos of individual hostages this week, which caused outrage between hostage families and Israeli society.

The Israeli media have not transmitted the videos, calling them propaganda, but the family of Rom Braslavski, 21, allowed the launch of a photograph that showed it visibly demacrated in an unknown place. After watching the video, Tami Braslavski, his mother, blamed the senior Israeli officials and demanded that they meet her.

“They broke my son, I love him at home now,” Braslavski told Ynet on Thursday. “Look at it: thin, lazy, crying. All their bones are out.”

The protesters asked the Israel government to reach an agreement to end the war, imploring them “stop this nightmare and take them out of the tunnels.”

“Do the right thing and just do it now,” said Lior Chorev, director of the Hostage Strategy and the missing families forum.

Witkoff’s meeting with families came a day after him and the United States ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee He toured one of the distribution sites of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and the Humanitarian Foundation with Gaza support. in the city of Rafah de Gaza del Sur de Gaza.

“We received reports from (the IDF) and talk to people on the ground. GHF offers more than one million meals a day, an incredible feat!” Huckabe said in a publication on social networks.

The four GHF distribution siteswhich are found in areas controlled by the Israeli army, have become points of despair, with massive multitudes of people who accumulate outside, but who have then been criticized by the Israeli forces or have been filmed in the resulting crush.

On Saturday, the hospitals in Gaza reported the murder of more than a dozen people, eight of them food applicants, for Israeli fire.

Near a GHF distribution site, Yahia Youssef, who had come to look for help on Saturday morning, described a panic scene now extravagant. After helping to take three people injured by shooting, he told News that he looked around and saw others lying on the floor bleeding.

“It is the same daily episode,” said Youssef.

In response to the questions about several stories of the violence of eyewitnesses in the northernmost of the four facilities of the US contractor backed by Israeli, GHF said “nothing (happened) in or near our sites.”

“We were not close to them (the troops) and there was no threat,” said Abed Salah, a 30 -year -old man who was among the crowds near the GHF site near the Netzarim corridor. “I escaped the death miraculously.”

From May 27 to July 31, 859 people were killed near the GHF sites, according to a United Nations report published on Thursday. Hundreds more have been killed along the routes of food convoys.

GHF says that their armed contractors have only used pepper spray or warning shots fired to avoid mortal overcrowding. Israel’s army has said that he has only fired the warning shots to people who approach their forces, although Friday he said he was working to make the routes under his control safer. Israel and GHF have said that the toll has been exaggerated.

Israel’s army did not immediately answer questions about deaths near the help sites. Meanwhile, his main general warned on Saturday that “the fight will continue tirelessly” if the hostages were not released. Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said that Israel’s army would adapt to “place Hamas under increasing pressure.”

The war in Gaza began when Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians. The retaliation offensive of Israel has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health led by Hamas, which does not distinguish between militants and civilians and operates under the government of Hamas. The UN and other international organizations see it as the most reliable data source about victims.

French agency Presse contributed to this report.

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