Israelis fear for hostages as Netanyahu celebrates ‘crushing blows’ against enemies

By Nadeen Ebrahim and Mike Schwartz, CNN

Tel Aviv, Israel (CNN) — As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu celebrates what he sees as major victories against Hamas and Hezbollah this week, the mood in Tel Aviv is far from celebratory.

Often bustling with crowds on a weekend, the coastal city of more than 400,000 residents was quieter than usual, with some attributing the subdued mood to fears of an Iranian attack in retaliation to the assassinations carried out against Hamas and Hezbollah leaders in recent days.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it was on “high alert,” and Israeli supermarkets are reporting a spike in shopping for basic goods as citizens stock up.

On Wednesday, Netanyahu said that his country “struck crushing blows” to the “the three H’s” – Hamas, the Houthis and Hezbollah, all Iranian-backed, all fierce Israeli foes. The prime minister was celebrating the assassination of Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, Hezbollah military commander Fu’ad Shukr and retaliatory strikes on the Houthis in Yemen last month.

Hamas also blamed Israel for the assassination of their political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed on Wednesday in Tehran. Israel has not commented on the killing.

Netanyahu’s tone stands at odds with the mood on the ground in Tel Aviv, including among families of the hostages still in Gaza.

Four of Yifat Zailer’s relatives are still held in Gaza by Hamas – Zailer’s cousin Shiri and her husband Yarden, along with their two sons, Ariel, 4, and Kfir, who spent his first birthday in captivity in January.

The Bibas boys remain the youngest of 111 hostages still held in Gaza since October 7, according to Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office and the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.

In November, Hamas released a video of Yarden Bibas blaming Netanyahu for the death of his wife and two children in an airstrike. CNN has not confirmed the deaths nor the claim of the airstrike.

“I thought this would end quicker,” Zailer told CNN’s Clarissa Ward in Tel Aviv, saying she is frustrated with the Israeli government because it isn’t listening to what people are saying on the streets.

“I feel they (the government) don’t hear it’s enough; I feel they don’t hear the people on the streets shouting, that our priority is getting the hostages back,” Zailer said.

Polls have repeatedly shown that most Israelis prioritize the release of hostages over continued war.

A recent survey conducted by independent research center the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) showed that 56% of Israelis support a deal to release all the hostages and end the war in Gaza. It also showed that most right-wing Israelis have a greater appetite for the war.

“A large majority of those on the left and in the center consider a deal for the release of hostages to be the highest priority,” the survey said, “while the majority on the right prioritize a military operation in Rafah.”

Zailer’s family was taken from Kibbutz Nir Or on October 7, when Hamas launched an attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and took 250 others hostage, according to Israeli authorities. Israel retaliated by waging a war in Gaza, which Palestinian authorities say killed more than 39,000 people in the enclave, most of whom are women and children.

The war has also displaced almost all of Gaza’s population, flattened much of the strip and triggered a humanitarian crisis. But Netanyahu has said that the war will continue until Hamas is eliminated, a goal deemed unrealistic by his critics.

Hopes that a deal that would release Zailer’s family, along with the more than 100 other hostages, have ebbed and flowed throughout the past ten months of war. The spike in tensions last week only raised the worst of fears.

Zailer worries she will wake up one day to find that all the hostages had been killed, she said, “because they (Hamas) decided they have nothing to gain out of them.”

‘We’re waiting for an attack’

As families worry for their loved ones in Gaza, those in Israel are bracing for a possible Iranian retaliation, a move that could plunge the Middle East into an all-out war that drags in other regional players and potentially the United States.

On Tel Aviv’s main beach promenade, some Israelis are spending their Saturday swimming and surfing, knowing an Iranian attack could hit their city at any moment.

“We’re waiting for an attack, that’s the general feeling now,” Itay Oved, 29, told CNN. While Israelis are used to attacks, he said, many are also tired.

“The achievements (assassinations) are good, but let’s get this thing over with. Let’s get out. Let’s finish this thing. We’re tired, everyone is tired,” Oved said.

Alona Lelchuk, 31, said this war feels different, however, mainly because there are hostages still in captivity.

“We can’t be too proud,” she told CNN. “We need to be alert, we cannot celebrate.”

Netanyahu has been accused of losing focus of one of the main purposes of the war, which was to bring back those kidnapped. Without a ceasefire deal, they are unlikely to come home. But the Israeli leader has been under pressure from far-right ministers of his coalition to delay a ceasefire deal and press on with the war in Gaza, which today shows few signs of ending.

Even before the last escalation, the prime minister has been accused by critics of obstructing negotiations leading to a deal, and instead clinging to an extended war in efforts to ensure his political survival and that of his coalition.

Zailer is worried that as the war drags on and the death tolls rise in Gaza, her concerns for the hostages become less and less “legitimate” in the eyes of the world, especially as Israel increasingly loses international support for its military campaign in the Palestinian enclave.

She also worries for the children, Israeli and Palestinian, who will be forced to grow up with the wounds of this drawn-out war.

“The children that will grow out of this war will remain with this wound and this fear and this pain,” Zailer told CNN. “On both sides.”

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CNN’s Eugenia Yosef and Tim Lister contributed reporting.