TEL AVIV — Thousands of Israelis protested on Saturday (May 4), demanding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accept a ceasefire agreement with the Islamist movement Hamas that would see the remaining Israeli hostages brought home from Gaza.

At a rally in Tel Aviv that took place as Hamas officials were meeting Egyptian and Qatari mediators in Cairo, relatives and supporters of the more than 130 hostages still in captivity said anything possible had to be done to bring them home.

"I'm here today to support a deal now, yesterday," said Natalie Eldor. "We need to bring them back. We need to bring all the hostages back, the live ones, the dead ones. We got to bring them back. We got to switch this government. This has got to end."

The protests, ahead of the Yom HaShoah Holocaust Remembrance Day, which falls this year on May 6, came as the war in Gaza nears the end of its seventh month amid growing international pressure to stop the fighting.

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