Families of hostages in Gaza say they've lost faith in Netanyahu

Families of some of the captives who were taken by Hamas to Gaza on 7 October say that they have lost trust in a government which failed to secure their release.

According to Israeli media reports, family members said that they were looking into ways of rescuing those still held in Gaza, without specifying what those methods might be.

Anger has long been brewing over the Israeli government's failure to secure the release of hostages taken by Hamas in their 7 October attack and held in Gaza ever since.

The families of about a dozen of the hostages protested outside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's home in Caesarea on Friday night, imploring the premier to do more to secure their release.

Hamas killed about 1,100 people and took hundreds more hostage in their large-scale attack on Israel on 7 October.

Estimates for how many hostages were taken in the attack have fluctuated, but Netanyahu said earlier this week that the number stood at 253.

More than 100 of them were released as part of a hostage-prisoner exchange deal with Hamas, reached at the end of November and mediated by Qatar. More than 300 Palestinians held in Israeli detention were released as part of the agreement.

Netanyahu was re-elected prime minister of Israel at the end of 2022, and appointed far-right politicians as ministers.

The premier and his government have been unpopular with the Israeli public almost from the outset, with their plans to overhaul the judiciary system especially controversial and sparking months of weekly mass protests.

Hamas officials have said that the group will release all the hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners once Israel ends the war.

Israel launched a brutal war on Gaza after the Hamas attack that has killed almost 25,000 people in the Palestinian territory and injured tens of thousands more.