Video: Protesters during the Day of Disruption on August 26, 2025

Roads were blocked across the country, including the Ayalon highways, Raanana Junction, Yakum bridge, Highway 4 near Mesubim, Highway 1, and Shilat Junction near Modiin. Police intercepted a stockpile of tires prepared for arson to block traffic arteries in central Israel.

Families took the lead. Yotam Cohen, brother of Nimrod Cohen, said, "A week after Hamas signaled readiness for a deal, there is still no agreement. Everyone saw my brother Nimrod in Hamas' custody, but he is not home." His father, Yehuda Cohen, added, "Israel stands against Netanyahu and his government."

Einav Zangauker, mother of Matan Zangauker, accused Netanyahu of stalling: "Our people fight for brothers and sisters in captivity. Netanyahu fears public pressure." Hagit Chen, mother of Itay Chen, urged, "Sit at the table until the last hostage returns." Itzik Horn, father of Eitan Horn, condemned the government for risking hostages' lives in a military operation, warning, "This is not the country we built."

Demonstrators also protested outside the homes of Minister Gila Gamliel and Likud lawmaker Boaz Bismuth, who is a senior Likud MK.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum issued a response to recent statements made by the US president Donald Trump, saying, "President Trump, you declared that within the next 2-3 weeks the war will come to an end. We pray this is true and that you are setting a deadline for ending our suffering. You made a direct commitment to the captivity survivors you met that you would bring all the hostages home – the time has come to fulfill this," the statement read.

"We want to remind you that there are 50 hostages in Gaza. Each one is a brother or sister, parent, child – an entire world. Since October 7, 42 hostages who were taken alive have been murdered in captivity. Every day the fighting continues puts our loved ones in greater danger of never returning home. Every additional delay in signing the deal endangers all 50 who remain there. We understand that the information you received from our government may be misleading, but please, we need your help, close the deal, and bring them all home before it's too late."

Eli Shtivi, father of Idan, who was murdered and whose body is being held in Gaza, told Kol Chai Radio: "Road blockades and shutting down the state are not what will bring the hostages home, it only bothers the ordinary citizen. I hear Hamas' calls from Gaza to topple the [Israeli] government and reach a deal that would also lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state, and unfortunately, many are echoing this call. We must not surrender to this. I do not agree that a Palestinian state should be established on the blood of my child."

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The property valuation pertains to assets left behind by Jews who were expelled or fled Arab nations and Iran in the late 1940s and 1950s. The review was two years in the making and its authors stressed that it is a conservative assessment that does not account for current inflation rates.

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The report sheds light on a particularly tragic chapter in the history of Arab and Iranian Jewry and constitutes the first time that the government has compiled comprehensive data on this issue, whose historical, sociopolitical, and international political ramifications could be highly significant.

The project has been in the works since 2002 but it wasn't until 2017, when Social Equality Minister Gila Gamliel assumed the mantle, that serious progress was made in this investigation.

Gamliel teamed with the National Security Council, which cast a wide international net with the aim of estimating the scope of lost Jewish property in Arab nations.

The exact methods used to compile the report remain classified, but a rough breakdown of the figures shows lost Jewish property in Iran is worth some $31.3 billion. Assets in Libya, for example, were pegged at $6.7 billion, followed by Yemen proper ($2.6 billion), its temporary capital of Aden ($700 million), and Syria ($1.4 billion).

Gamliel is expected to present the findings to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the coming weeks.

"We may be able to begin righting a historical wrong, as part of which hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees who have lost their property could regain it, alongside their forgotten place in the historical narrative of the young state that emerged as they became refugees."

A lost chapter in history

The parameters examined in the report include rural and urban property, businesses' value, loss of income and potential income, and loss of communal property, to name a few.

The report's authors worked off the assumption that in order for any political process to be credible and long-lasting, "It is necessary to ensure that all refugees in the Middle East receive equal treatment under international law."

In 2010, the government passed a law by which any future peace deal with Arab countries will entail compensation for lost Jewish property, but until now the state did not actually know the extent of the property left behind or its exact location.

For the most part, when addressing the issue of "refugees" in the Middle East, the international community, as well as different sectors automatically attribute the term to Palestinian refugees, even though the same period of time (1948-1967) saw over 850,000 Jews leave various Arab countries and Iran. Some 600,000 arrived in Israel and the rest relocated mainly to the US or Europe.

Jewish communities' roots in the Arab world date back over 2,500 years, but unfortunately, the geopolitical upheavals of the Middle East – especially in the 20^th century – have relegated these vibrant communities to a little more than a footnote in history.

In the current political climate in the region, the issue of Palestinian refugee often makes headlines while most remain oblivious to the existence of the issue of hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees who were forced to leave their countries of origin and who, by emigrating to Israel, have significantly shaped its social fabric.

Commenting on previous Israeli governments' neglect of this issue given its ramifications on any future negotiations, Gamliel said that she was "stunned to discover so little has been done over the years."

The current review "is very important for the past and the present but even more so for the future, as diplomatic efforts the likes of [US] President Trump's 'deal of the century' are about to unfold and entail significant implications," she said.

Since 2014, Israel officially marks the Day of Departure and Expulsion of Jews from the Arab Countries and Iran on Nov. 30.

The symbolic date was chosen since it follows Nov. 29 on which the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was adopted and after which many Jews living in Arab countries were pressured or forced to leave their countries.

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