Thousands of people rallied in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square Monday night to mark 500 days since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught in southern Israel — calling for the return of hostages still held by terrorists in Gaza.

Gathering at the tail end of a 500-minute fast called to mark the somber occasion, relatives of hostages and others urged the government to step up efforts to get them out of Gaza, their warnings of wretched conditions bolstered by the accounts of those recently freed, including one man released just two days earlier.

“I was there. I was in Hamas’s tunnels. My body endured this captivity, and I’m telling you the hostages do not have any more time,” a tearful Iair Horn said in a pre-recorded video screened to a crowd of around 2,000 people.

Horn was freed on Saturday alongside Sagui Dekel-Chen and Sasha Troufanov as part of a ceasefire and hostage release arrangement with the Hamas terror group in Gaza. All three were abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz during the October 7, 2023, assault on southern Israel, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 were seized as hostages.

“We’re out of time. We must return them now,” said Horn, whose brother Eitan Horn was also kidnapped and remains in captivity. “Bring back my brother and all of the hostages.”

The ceasefire deal is due to see six more hostages freed over the next few weeks, as well as the bodies of eight other people who were kidnapped. But a second phase meant to secure the release of the remaining hostages remains in doubt, with the government sending mixed signals regarding the resumption of negotiations.

Aviva Seigel, a former hostage whose husband Keith was released earlier this month, said his captors took away his humanity over the long months he was held.

“Out of the 484 days he was in Gaza, he was alone for six months, lying on a mattress on a floor in a very small room, starved,” she said. “The only food that went into his mouth was moldy or burnt pita bread unfit for humans to eat.”

She described Keith being subjected to a random beating and having one of his captors point a gun at him and threaten to kill him for no reason.

“I asked Keith, ‘What did you do [when] he did that to you?’ Keith told me: ‘Nothing.’ The terrorists turned Keith into nothing,” she said. “Every human thing was taken from him, sometimes even going to the bathroom.”

Varda Ben Baruch, grandmother of US-Israeli captive soldier Edan Alexander, recited a blessing and sipped some water, as she called for the hostages’ release.

“I want to break the fast and break their fate,” she said.

Edan’s mother Yael spoke next.

“I am Yael Alexander, and I haven’t breathed for 500 days,” she said.  Subsequent speakers opened their speeches the same way.

She urged the government to hammer out a deal that would bring all remaining hostages home at once, rather than the current deal’s phased releases — another common theme in the night’s speeches.

She ended with what would also emerge as a refrain: “To give up on them is to give up on us!”

In English, she thanked US........

© The Times of Israel