Last night's hostage protest reached a new level of anguish. Is anyone listening?

As Israel pulls its team out of Cairo talks and the war cabinet holds secret meetings, people's desperation is growing. And the Ko'ach Kaplan anti-government protests are back.

Last night's protest at Hostage Square in Tel Aviv marking 134 days that 134 hostages are still being held in Gaza by Hamas was emotionally overpowering. The pain and anguish of these families grows every day, every minute. Their desperation for support, their pleas for the leaders to hear them, their screams begging the world to help them, grow louder and more heart-rendering every day.

Last night the protest was different from all the other protests until now. The families did away with niceties and formalities and bits intended to make the issue easier to swallow. No singers, no performances, no celebrities. It was just speeches from families of hostages, one after another after another. Each one more pained and more full of anger than the next.

Because their loved ones are being left to die.

That's the truth.

They have long been abandoned by the people whose job it is to protect them. Or, as one of the speakers said, we have ALL been abandoned by the people whose job it is to protect us.

Massive yellow sign on Kaplan street that says, HUFKARNU, “We have been abandoned,” with a face of PM Bibi Netanyahu

The government long ago decided that there are other things more "important" than getting the hostages back. Even as polls show that at least 70% of the country believes that getting the hostages back should be FIRST priority and everything else second. This government does whatever it feels like. No matter what the electorate wants. No matter what moral codes say. No matter what our human conscience says. No matter how many people have to die from their self-serving revenge-seeking decisions. No matter how many lives are ruined. The government does what it wants. The rest of us have been abandoned. Sacrificed. Especially the hostages.

Last night's protest was also different because it is taking place against the backdrop of the Cairo talks, the most serious and intensive negotiations thus far, pushed and prodded by governments around the world.

And Israel pulled out its negotiation teams from Cairo.

Israel isn't even there. It's unfathomable. They just walked away. And announced that they have no intention of going back.

Our government isn't even trying.

The families are, rightfully, furious about this. How can it be that Israel isn't even TRYING to negotiate? It is beyond comprehension.

At the same time, the war cabinet has excluded from discussions the people who are not technically part of the government, the ones whose job it was meant to be to make sure that the government acts in the interests of the people. Those outsiders-- Gantz and Eizenkot -- according to last night's speakers, should refuse to be a "fig leaf" for this government. This corrupt, self-serving, anti-life government. The one that is betraying its own people.

Me, last night at Hostage Square, holding my rain-worn hand-made sign that reads, “Bring them home now! Ceasefire now!” In front of a massive crowd, standing in the intermittent rain.

Meanwhile, Bibi says his usual lies. Says that the war will take years because we have to "finish" the job, even as everyone knows there is no such thing as "finishing" Hamas. American intelligence community and Israel's own intelligence says that this is impossible, just fantasy, just spin, just lies that Bibi keeps feeding us to keep us at war. We need realistic aims, a realistic plan. Israel has none. Even Israel's biggest allies are sounding alarms about what it means to continue bombarding in an endless war with no real aims, filled with spin and macho and wassach and grandiose primal declarations followed by intense violence. We are being warned, we are losing friends around the world, we are bringing more and more bloodshed everywhere. And it's all based on these lies that Bibi keeps spewing. Just lies. Spin. Emotional manipulation.

And Bibi also says, "We are very very far from a deal," trying to explain why he isn't even sending a team to Cairo -- even as the rest of the teams involved say that they are working, that everyone is working, to bridge gaps and come to a resolution. He says this even though it is the opposite of the truth. Everyone else is trying, but Bibi wants an excuse to not even try. Because he knows that if there is a deal, that will be the end of the war -- and the end of his regime, and possibly his freedom from imprisonment. He will not go there, no matter what the cost.

So he lies. He just lies and manipulates us all so that he can stay in power. Even if that means sacrificing the lives and families of 134 hostages.

Sacrifices, sacrifices, sacrifices...

And so.... while tens of thousands of people protested at Hostage Square last night, just around the corner, the Ko'ach Kaplan group was holding its own protest with its own tens of thousands. This is the group that for 11 months in 2023 was protesting to protect democracy from the wiles and corrupt legislation of the coalition and its dictator-wannabe prime minister. Last night, for the first time since Oct 7, they took the streets again. Only this time, they are no longer calling to block legislation. They are calling to get Bibi out of government. Elections NOW!

Unfortunately, you can have a million people protesting on the street to send the Prime Minister home and it has no effect. Biden can say we need new leadership. Everyone in Cairo can say we need new leadership. Half of the Knesset can say we need new leadership. It makes absolutely no difference. In order to have new elections, we need four members of the coalition to defect and agree to a no-confidence vote.

Will that happen? Are there four coalition members willing to do the right thing? Doubtful. But I guess we'll see.

A man and a woman last night at the Tel Aviv protests holding a sing in Hebrew that says. “Mi anachnu im hem sham?” Who are WE if they are there?” Exactly, exactly, exactly…..

In the meantime, the pain and anger is rising throughout Israel. Rising, rising, rising....

Whether or not we have elections, I'm not sure Israel will ever recover from all this. The loss of trust. The loss of safety and security. The loss of belonging. The loss of connection and connectivity. The loss of our own humanity. The loss of our own moral core. The loss of knowing who we are in the human race. The loss of hope. The loss of being able to look at another human being and believe in their humanness. The effects of this war and all that goes along with it with be with us for a long time. Tainting our souls -- our individual souls and our collective soul.

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