A group of about 50 protesters gathered outside the Manhattan home of U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres demanding action be taken to bring home the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas.
"What [has the UN] done, they've done nothing," organizer Omer Lubaton Granot told The New York Post after the demonstration. "In the most basic way, it's legitimizing this situation.
"It's legitimizing terrorism, legitimizing taking hostages."
The group said it plans to do the same every Friday morning until the hostages are released.
"On Oct. 7, my cousin [Chen Almog Goldstein] became a hostage and a bereaved mother on the same day," Granot, who attended the protest with his wife and toddler in tow, told The Post.
"She was taken hostage with her three children, Agam, Gal and Tal — and her husband, Nagav, and her eldest daughter, Yam, were murdered," he said.
An estimated 240 people were taken hostage after fighters from Hamas staged an unprecedented incursion into Israeli territory on Oct. 7, killing an estimated 1,400 people.
The New York Times earlier this week reported that Israel and Hamas nearly struck a deal to free up to 50 hostages in exchange for pausing the bombardment unleashed in response to the Oct. 7 attacks.
But those negotiations came to a halt once Israel's ground assault on Gaza got under way.
"There will be no pause without the return of hostages and missing persons," Israel's defense minister, Yoav Gallant, said in a written statement to The Times this week. "The only way of saving the hostages is if Israel continues its ground operation."
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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