US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff stated that the US was planning to end the war and called for an all-or-nothing approach to end the Israel-Hamas War in a meeting with hostage families on Saturday.
According to a press release, Witkoff said that the US had a plan to "end the war and bring everyone home," and that this was US President Donald Trump's top priority.
The majority of the Israeli public wants the kidnapped people home, and the majority of the Gazan public wants the kidnapped people back, because they want the Strip to be restored, Witkoff told the families of the hostages in a three-hour meeting.
“Our first priority is to bring all the hostages home. President Trump believes everyone should come out, and those who are alive must be kept alive. This is a sacred mission to him.”
Witkoff told the families that he came to personally assess the situation in Gaza and to ensure that humanitarian aid is being provided. He said that while there is hardship and food shortages, there is no starvation in Gaza.
He said, according to Israeli media, that once the claim of starvation is refuted, negotiations can continue to end the war and return all the hostages.
Hamas responded to Witkoff on Saturday, saying that it would not lay down arms unless an independent Palestinian state is established.
In a statement, the Palestinian terror group said its "armed resistance ... cannot be relinquished except through the full restoration of our national rights, foremost among them the establishment of an independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital."
Hostage families demonstrate in Tel Aviv
Hostage families erected a symbolic barbed wire fence compound to stand inside in protest for a hostage-ceasefire deal on Saturday morning, following the publication of two videos of hostages held in Gaza by terrorist organizations on Thursday and Friday.
Hamas’s propaganda videos over the past two days illustrate that the Israelis in captivity are living through a Holocaust, hostage demonstration leader and mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, Einav Zangauker, said on X/Twitter Saturday.
“My Matan is living through a Holocaust,” she lamented. “The videos released over the past two days of the hostages are breaking us.”
"Never again is now!" she declared. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum urged the Israeli and US governments to look their loved ones in the eyes, and called for a comprehensive deal to release the hostages and end the war immediately.
"The danger to their lives is tangible and immediate. The risk of losing those deceased is growing. Stop this nightmare and bring them out of the tunnels home!"
Gaza terror groups publish videos of hostages
Palestinian Islamic Jihad published a video of Rom Braslavski on Thursday, and Hamas published a video of Evyatar David on Friday.
In the propaganda videos, the two appeared to be emaciated. The Braslavski family said they were “deeply shaken” by the footage.
At the demonstration, Yael Adar, mother of Tamir Adar, said that after watching the videos, she could not breathe.
"Sights of skin and bones, and my son doesn’t even get the right to burial. Get the living hostages out before they’re in my situation. The living won’t survive, they won’t find the dead… We are in the destruction of the Third Temple! Those who fast tomorrow should fast for the future to come!”
“People talk a lot about what is happening in Gaza, about hunger, and I want to ask everyone who spoke about hunger: Did you see our Rom? He is not receiving food, he is not receiving medicine. He has simply been forgotten there,” the family shared in a statement.
'A million punches' to the heart
In response to the video of David, his sister Yaelah said: "Anyone who saw the video now knows the severity and the physical condition Evyatar is in, which felt like a million punches to my heart."
“You all saw how he looks, the hunger, his physical condition. Hamas is starving people, not Israel,” former hostage Omer Wenkert said of the video showing David. “While I lost 37 kilograms, I didn’t see my captors lose a single kilo. Hamas is stealing the supplies.”
Wenkert was held alongside David in a narrow tunnel for 250 days before he was released.