FREE PRESS
They Are Home
Matti Friedman
October 13, 2025

…At Saturday night’s rally, though no hostages had actually been released yet, the atmosphere was valedictory. The Israelis who rallied over the past two years under the banner “Bring Them Home,” and whose energies kept the hostages and their families in headlines in Israel and abroad through two dark and often hopeless years, allowed themselves to smile and cheer, waving Israeli and American flags. Trump may have been passed over by the Nobel Peace Prize committee last week, but here they waved signs reading “Trump Is Our Winner.” The two Israeli goals in the Gaza war have been to destroy Hamas as a military force and free the hostages. It became clear early on, however, that achieving both at once would be impossible, and polls have repeatedly shown that a majority of Israelis think the second goal is more important. READ MORE