U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff on Saturday met with the households of Israeli hostages nonetheless held in Gaza in Tel Aviv as fears for the captives’ survival grew almost 22 months into the warfare.
The households of the hostages have been protesting in Tel Aviv, urging Israel’s authorities to push more durable for the discharge of their family members. Witkoff, who was greeted with some applause and pleas for help, joined them for a closed assembly.
Movies shared on-line confirmed Witkoff arriving as households chanted “Bring them home!” and “We need your help.”
The Hostages of Lacking Households Discussion board confirmed the assembly, which got here every week after Witkoff give up ceasefire talks, blaming Hamas’ intransigence and pledging to seek out different methods to free the hostages and make Gaza secure.
U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff met with the households of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
Hostages of Lacking Households Discussion board
After the assembly, the Discussion board launched an announcement saying that Witkoff had given them a private dedication that he and President Trump would work to return the remaining hostages.
“We will get your children home and hold Hamas responsible for any bad acts on their part. We will do what’s right for the Gazan people,” Witkoff stated within the assembly, in keeping with the Discussion board.
Of the 251 hostages who have been kidnapped by Hamas-led terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023, round 20 are believed to be alive in Gaza. Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the second-largest militant group in Gaza, launched separate movies of particular person hostages this week, triggering outrage amongst hostage households and Israeli society.
Israeli media haven’t broadcast the movies, calling them propaganda, however the household of 21-year-old Rom Braslavski allowed the discharge of {a photograph} exhibiting him visibly emaciated in an unknown location. After viewing the video, Tami Braslavski, his mom, blamed high Israeli officers and demanded they meet along with her.
“They broke my child, I want him home now,” Braslavski instructed Ynet on Thursday. “Look at him: Thin, limp, crying. All his bones are out.”
Protestors known as on Israel’s authorities to make a deal to finish the warfare, imploring them to “stop this nightmare and bring them out of the tunnels.”
“Do the right thing and just do it now,” stated Lior Chorev, chief technique officer of the Hostages and Lacking Households Discussion board.
Witkoff’s assembly with the households got here a day after he and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee toured one of many privately run U.S. and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Basis’s distribution websites within the southern Gaza metropolis of Rafah.
A photograph shared on social media by U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff reveals him and Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee visiting an assist distribution web site in Gaza on Friday, August 1 2025.
Steve Witkoff
“We received briefings from (the IDF) and spoke to folks on the ground. GHF delivers more than one million meals a day, an incredible feat!” Huckabee stated in a social media submit.
The GHF’s 4 distribution websites, that are in zones managed by the Israeli army, have develop into flashpoints of desperation, with mass crowds of individuals gathering exterior however who’ve then come underneath hearth from Israeli forces or been trampled within the ensuing crush.
On Saturday, hospitals in Gaza reported the killing of greater than a dozen individuals, eight of them food-seekers, by Israeli hearth.
Close to a GHF distribution web site, Yahia Youssef, who had come to hunt assist Saturday morning, described a panicked scene now grimly acquainted. After serving to perform three individuals wounded by gunshots, he instructed the Related Press he regarded round and noticed others mendacity on the bottom bleeding.
“It’s the same daily episode,” Youssef stated.
In response to questions on a number of eyewitness accounts of violence on the northernmost of the Israeli-backed American contractor’s 4 amenities, GHF stated “nothing (happened) at or near our sites.”
“We weren’t close to them (the troops) and there was no threat,” Abed Salah, a person in his 30s who was among the many crowds near the GHF web site close to Netzarim hall, stated. “I escaped death miraculously.”
From Might 27 to July 31, 859 individuals have been killed close to GHF websites, in keeping with a United Nations report revealed Thursday. Tons of extra have been killed alongside the routes of meals convoys.
GHF says its armed contractors have solely used pepper spray or fired warning pictures to stop lethal crowding. Israel‘s army has stated it has solely fired warning pictures at individuals who strategy its forces, although on Friday stated it was working to make the routes underneath its management safer. Israel and GHF have stated that the toll has been exaggerated.
Israel’s army didn’t instantly reply to questions concerning the deaths close to the help websites. Its high common, in the meantime, warned Saturday that “combat will continue without rest” if hostages weren’t freed. Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir stated Israel’s army would adapt to “place Hamas under increasing pressure.”
The warfare in Gaza started when Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing round 1,200 individuals, largely civilians. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed greater than 60,000 Palestinians, in keeping with Gaza’s Hamas-run Well being Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between militants and civilians and operates underneath the Hamas authorities. The U.N. and different worldwide organizations see it as essentially the most dependable supply of knowledge on casualties.
Agence France-Presse
contributed to this report.
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