The Israeli news site "Ynet" reported today, Wednesday, that hundreds of protesters closed the Kerem Abu Salem crossing on the border with the Gaza Strip, preventing aid trucks from entering the Strip, and demanded that no aid be allowed in until the release of the hostages held in Gaza.

The site said that among the participants in the protests were members of families of Israeli soldiers killed in the battles in the Gaza Strip, representatives of the families of the hostages, recently discharged reservist soldiers, in addition to civilians evacuated from southern Israel on the Gaza border, and northern Israel on the Lebanon border.

The ongoing Israeli war, which has lasted for more than 110 days, has resulted in the death of more than 25,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip so far, as well as tens of thousands injured.

Israel launched the war in response to an attack carried out by Hamas and other Palestinian factions on Israeli towns adjacent to the Gaza Strip, which Israel says resulted in about 1,200 deaths on October 7, in addition to the detention of about 240 hostages brought back by the faction fighters to Gaza.

Israeli attacks on the Strip only ceased for one week in late November; thanks to a humanitarian ceasefire agreement reached through Qatari, Egyptian, and American mediation, under which Hamas released more than 100 women and children it had held since the October 7 attack, in exchange for Israel releasing 240 women and minors in its prisons.