'700 Days in Hell': Times Sq. Billboard Highlights Remaining 48 Hostages

A towering digital billboard has been erected in New York City's Times Square marking 700 days since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists entered southern Israel and brutally slaughtered more than 1,200 people and abducted more than 250 people to the Gaza Strip.

Forty-eight hostages — dead and alive — remain in Gaza, according to Israeli officials.

"Their faces in Times Square remind the world: they MUST come home NOW," the Consulate General of Israel in New York, which launched the campaign, posted on X Friday morning.

The billboard features a rotating carousel of images of the hostages, along with the message: "700 DAYS IN HELL."

"The billboard campaign aims to underscore the urgency of releasing all hostages now following 700 days of torturous captivity," the X post added.

Ofir Akunis, the Consul General of Israel in New York, said, "This attack — that was perpetrated by Hamas — was one of the most heinous acts of evil in human history since the Holocaust."

Akunis, who assumed his post in May 2024, continued, "No human being with a conscience can remain unmoved in the face of such atrocities that took place that day: the slaughter of innocents, the burning of entire families alive, acts of sexual violence, the brutal beheadings and mutilations, and the kidnapping of hundreds of innocent people."

The campaign comes as the Israel Defense Forces intensify its activity in Gaza, particularly Gaza City.

On Friday, for example, an IDF precision strike brought down a high-rise in Gaza City, which Defense Minister Israel Katz described as a "multi-story terror building" Hamas used as a command center to coordinate attacks on Israeli soldiers.

"Once the door opens, it will not close, and IDF activity will intensify until the Hamas murderers and rapists accept Israel's conditions to end the war, foremost among them the release of all the hostages and disarmament, or they will be destroyed," Katz said.

Akunis echoed Katz's remarks, adding, "The return of the 48 hostages and the complete removal of Hamas from Gaza are the necessary conditions for ending this war.

"Only then can the process of rebuilding the Gaza Strip begin."

He doubled down: "We must be clear: those who choose to criticize or condemn Israel for defending ourselves — whether knowingly or not — are serving as enablers of Hamas."