Hostage Families Convoy Reaches Gaza Border

The Hostages Families Forum led a convoy of vehicles from Hostage Square in Tel Aviv to the Gaza border in a call for a hostage deal that would see their relatives released from Hamas captivity.  They plan to call out to their loved ones using loudspeakers mounted on a crane.

“The opportunity to bring everyone back is slipping away with each passing day,” the Forum said in a statement announcing the convoy.

The convoy, which arrived at the Kibbutz Be’eri amphitheater in the early hours of the evening, included trailers carrying some of the cars that were burnt and badly damaged during Hamas’s October 7 massacre.

Families hope to call out to their relatives from across the Gaza border using loudspeakers in the hopes that they will be able to hear them.

Father of US-Israeli hostage Itay Chen, Ruby Chen said: “Each time there’s an obstacle. One time it’s called Rafah. Now it’s called the Philadelphi Corridor and God help us there’ll be more in the future. We need this to end. After 327 days, everyone needs to come out. We all understand, to make this happen, we need a ceasefire in order to bring everybody out.”

Hostage families drive in a convoy to Kibbutz Be’eri to urge the government to sign a deal to free their loved ones from captivity in Gaza, August 28, 2024.

The convoy, made up of over 300 vehicles, arrived at Kibbutz Be’eri adorned with Israeli flags and yellow flags for the hostages and along with thousands of participants.

Three speakers then took that stage at the outdoor amphitheater to address an audience holding posters of hostages, waving flags, and wearing t-shirts featuring the faces of the captives.

The speakers reiterated the importance of redeeming hostages as more vital than retaining control of the Philadelphi Corridor between Gaza and Egypt, referring to the shifting sticking points over the last several months of negotiations.