Half a million protesters took to the streets of Tel Aviv last night to protest the Israeli government’s failure to secure the return of the remaining hostages in Gaza.

The rally, which organisers claim is the largest ever held in Tel Aviv, saw a ‘small cadre of protesters’ lighting bonfires and creating roadblocks, police told The Times of Israel.

At least five activists were arrested at the demonstration for allegedly fighting with officers, including a minor who crossed the road after officers said to clear off of it. Angry protesters chanted ‘Officer! Officer! Whom are you protecting?’ as the detainees were dragged away.

Last night’s protest capped off a week of nightly demonstrations demanding a ceasefire after the discovery of another six dead hostages in Gaza, while hospital and local authorities said Israeli air raids in the territory killed more than a dozen people overnight into Saturday.

It also comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week pushed back against pressure for a cease-fire deal and declared that ‘no one will preach to me’.

The Hostage Families Forum, which planned last night’s demonstration, reported that 500,000 people turned up to the rally in Tel Aviv, a tally echoed by police. 

Another 250,000 activists simultaneously demonstrated in other areas around the country, including Jerusalem, Haifa, Rishon Lezion, Beersheba, Netanya and elsewhere, the newspaper reported.

It comes after the bodies of six hostages, taken alive by Hamas during its incursion into Israel on October 7, were found in a tunnel 20m (66ft) underground last weekend and less than a mile away from where fellow hostage Qaid Farhan Alkadi had been found.

The army identified the others as Ori Danino, 25; Eden Yerushalmi, 24; Almog Sarusi, 27; Alexander Lobanov, 33; and Carmel Gat, 40. 

Shay Dickmann, a cousin of deceased hostage Gat, told the crowd at the demonstration last night that the 40-year-old ‘was so close’ to being released as part of a hostage deal put forward in July ‘but Netanyahu said no’.

‘[Last] Thursday, Carmel was alive. A terrorist put a Kalashnikov to her head, and when he felt the military pressure, he pulled the trigger. Military pressure led to her death,’ Dickmann said. 

Efrat Machikawa, niece of hostage Gadi Moses, also participated in the rally last night, saying: ‘I think even those who were maybe reluctant to go out, who are not used to protest, who are sad but prefer to be in private space within their sadness, understood our voice must join together to one huge scream: Bring the hostages with a deal. Do not risk their lives.’ 

Former hostages Danielle Aloni and Andrey Kozlov also addressed the rally, taking aim at Netanyahu for claiming in recently leaked documents that the hostages were merely suffering.

‘Let me remind the prime minister, today is September 7, and today we mark exactly 11 months since the awful disaster. Who would believe that eleven months later, the hostages still wouldn’t be here,’ she told the rally.  

‘As someone who was there in the tunnels, I can testify that they’re not just suffering, they’re also dying, very much dying.’

Kozlov, who was freed from Hamas captivity in June, added: ‘I don’t know why, but I am blessed, I am here. Hersh, Eden, Carmel, Ori, Almog and Alex are not.’

Israel has been under increasing pressure from the United States and other allies to reach a cease-fire deal, but Netanyahu insists on continued Israeli control of the Philadelphi corridor, a narrow band along Gaza’s border with Egypt where Israel contends Hamas smuggles weapons. Egypt and Hamas deny it.

Inside Gaza, health workers wrapped up the second phase of an urgent polio vaccination campaign designed to prevent a large-scale outbreak. 

The drive, launched after the first polio case in the Palestinian enclave in 25 years, aims to vaccinate 640,000 children during a war that has destroyed the health care system. The third phase of vaccinations will be in the north.

Israel kept up its military offensive. In central Gaza’s urban refugee camp of Nuseirat, Al-Awda Hospital said it received the bodies of nine people killed in two air raids. 

One hit a residential building, killing four people and wounding at least 10, while five people were killed in a strike on a house in western Nuseirat.

Separately, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, central Gaza’s main hospital, said a woman and her two children were killed in a strike on a house in the nearby urban refugee camp of Bureij.

In northern Gaza, an airstrike on a school-turned-shelter for displaced people in the town of Jabaliya killed at least four people and wounded about two dozen others, according to Gaza’s Civil Defense authority, which operates under the territory’s Hamas-run government. 

Israel’s military said it struck a Hamas command post embedded in a former school compound.

The war began when Hamas and other militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people, primarily civilians. Hamas is believed to still be holding more than 100 hostages. Israeli authorities estimate about a third are dead. 

Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count. The ministry says more than 94,000 people have been wounded.

Violence has also spiked in the occupied West Bank. A dayslong military operation in Jenin left dozens of dead.

A day after an American protester was shot and killed in the West Bank, her family urged President Joe Biden to order an independent investigation, saying that ‘given the circumstances of (her) killing, an Israeli investigation is not adequate.’ 

Their statement called the 26-year-old recent university graduate a ‘ray of sunshine’ and an advocate for human dignity.

Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, who also holds Turkish nationality, was shot in the head, two Palestinian doctors said. She had been demonstrating against Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Witnesses said she was shot during a moment of calm following earlier clashes.

The White House has said it was ‘deeply disturbed’ and called on Israel to investigate. The Israeli military said it was looking into reports that troops had killed a foreign national while firing at an ‘instigator of violent activity.’

More than 500,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank, a territory captured by Israel in 1967. Israeli raids, attacks by Palestinian militants on Israelis and attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians have left more than 690 Palestinians dead since the Israel-Hamas war began in October, according to Palestinian health officials.

In Gaza, Hamas has accused Israel of dragging out cease-fire negotiations by issuing new demands. 

Hamas has offered to release all hostages in return for an end to the war, the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces and the release of a large number of Palestinian prisoners, including high-profile militants – broadly the terms called for under an outline for a deal put forward by Biden in July. 

Along the border with Lebanon, near-daily clashes continued between Israeli forces and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

An Israeli drone strike hit a Lebanese Civil Defense team fighting a fire in the town of Froun, killing three volunteers and wounding two others, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said. The blaze was sparked by a previous Israeli strike, the statement said. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Israel’s military said some 45 rockets were fired at northern Israel in several barrages, many targeting the Mount Meron area but falling in open areas. Several rockets fell in Shlomi and around the city of Safed. There were no injuries. 

The military later said its jets struck Hezbollah military infrastructure and a rocket launcher in the area of Qabrikha in southern Lebanon.