Thousands of people were set to rally across the country on Saturday evening for the return of the bodies of the 13 slain hostages still held in Gaza amid the ceasefire-hostage deal.

“We’re in fateful days, critical days that will test the promise to bring home all our hostages,” said the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents most of the hostages’ families.

“We won’t let anyone take the comprehensive agreement for their return lightly,” the Forum added.

In a separate video statement via the Forum, Ayelet Goldin, whose brother Hadar’s body was snatched to Gaza after he was killed fighting in the 2014 war there, accused Hamas of withholding information on slain hostages, in violation of Israel’s October 9 ceasefire agreement with the terror group.

“Hamas knows where the hostages are. Hamas is playing with us,” said Goldin, whose brother is the last Israeli held in Gaza from before the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, which sparked the current war in the Strip.

“I implore you: the battle’s not over,” she said, calling on Israelis to join hostage families at the Forum’s central rally, at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv on Saturday night.

“We’re fighting for our hostages, for our soldiers. My Hadar will become a symbol of the return of all the hostages,” she added.

Set to speak at Hostages Square are relatives of two slain hostages whose bodies remain in Gaza: Noam Katz, daughter of Lior Rudaeff, who was killed fighting terrorists in Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak in the October 7 onslaught; and Rotem Cooper, son of Amiram Cooper, who was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz and killed in captivity.

Also set to speak are relatives of two of the 15 slain hostages whose bodies have been returned to Israel under the current ceasefire: Alon Nimrodi, father of Tamir Nimrodi, a soldier who was killed in captivity about a month after being abducted from his base near the Gaza border; and Nira and Ofir Sharabi, respectively the wife and daughter of Yossi Sharabi, who was kidnapped from Kibbutz Be’eri and killed in captivity, and whose brother Eli Sharabi was released in February under the previous Gaza ceasefire.

Anat Angrest, mother of former hostage Matan Angrest, and Lishsy Miran Lavi and Moshe Lavi, respectively the wife and brother-in-law of former hostage Omri Miran, will also speak at Hostages Square. Both hostages were among the 20 last living hostages in Gaza, who were released on October 13.

In addition to Hostages Square, the Families Forum will hold dozens of smaller rallies across the country, including in Jerusalem, Kiryat Gat and the Shaar HaNegev Junction in the south, it said.

Meanwhile, anti-government groups also announced plans to rally across the country. In Haifa, the self-styled “people’s protest” said it would march through the city’s busy Horev area and hold a demonstration with speakers including Maj. Gen. (res.) Amiram Levin, a former commander of the elite Sayeret Matkal military unit and Mossad deputy chief.

“Enough with the lies, enough with the fear, enough with the noise,” wrote the group on Facebook. “It’s time for a normal government that will help the people stay united and sane. A state of citizens, not of a crime syndicate.”

In Tel Aviv, anti-government groups planned to rally at both Hostages Square and a block away, at the IDF headquarters’ Begin Road gate.

Some protesters are expected to march to Hostages Square from Dizengoff Square, in the city’s center, to demand, after “two years of debacle, abandon and insanity in government… a state commission of inquiry and termination of the government of the October 7 massacre.”

“The truth must come out, and those responsible must be held responsible,” organizers of the march said in an announcement.

The call came after the Knesset State Control Committee, where members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition are the majority, on Wednesday voted down the latest opposition proposal to form a state commission of inquiry. Netanyahu, who has avoided taking responsibility for the failure surrounding October 7, rejects such a commission on the grounds that it would be biased against him because it is convened by the judiciary, which Netanyahu’s government has sought to weaken.

The anti-government protest at Begin Gate will be just south of a smaller left-wing protest, where a self-styled “Silence is a Crime Bloc” will protest Israel’s “illegal detention of Palestinians” from Gaza and the West Bank, and demand “to break the silence around their inhumane prison conditions,” according to an announcement by the group.

The protest comes after UK newspaper The Guardian and other outlets have reported that there were signs of torture on some bodies of Gazan detainees handed over by Israel in exchange for deceased hostages. According to The Guardian, the IDF said it had asked the Israel Prison Service to investigate the allegations, and the IPS did not respond to a request for comment.

Anti-government protesters also plan to rally Saturday afternoon outside the Hadarim prison in central Israel’s Even Yehuda, where six protesters remain jailed more than a month after they were detained for torching dumpsters, accidentally setting a car on fire, during a protest outside Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem in September.

Announcing the rally outside the prison, anti-government activist Or-ly Barlev wrote on X Saturday that the so-called dumpster detainees are “the salt of the earth, heroes who have devoted years to the country and were acting as part of the protest to return the hostages.”

They were being held, some for more than 50 days, “on charges that are not applied to other groups like ultra-Orthodox or right-wing extremists,” said Barlev, adding that the dumpster detainees were subjected to increasing “repression,” including unexplained transfers between jails, solitary confinement and beatings.

The Israel Prison Service could not immediately be reached for comment on the allegations due to Shabbat.

The Protest Detainee Legal Support Front, a group of lawyers that represents people arrested at anti-government protests pro bono, said Saturday that 2,534 protesters have been arrested since the mass demonstrations began in January 2023, when the government presented its judicial overhaul.