Dozens protest outside Blinken, Herzog meeting in Tel Aviv

Dozens of people have demonstrated in front of the hotel where US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Israeli President Isaac Herzog met in Tel Aviv, demanding the release of hostages.

On Tuesday, the protesters carried banners and chanted slogans calling on US President Joe Biden to help release Israeli captives held in Gaza during the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas.

They also called for a ceasefire and another hostage-prisoner swap deal.

Blinken, on his fourth mission to the region since October, met Herzog, and his counterpart Israel Katz, and is due to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others.

60 percent of infrastructure damaged

Israel has pounded Gaza since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7, killing more than 23,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring nearly 59,000 others, according to local health authorities.

Israel says 1,200 people were killed in Hamas's cross-border attack, and that Palestinian groups still hold more than 100 hostages of the 240 held in October.

The onslaught has left Gaza in ruins, with 60 percent of the enclave’s infrastructure damaged or destroyed and nearly 2 million Palestinian residents displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicines.

Israel, which has so far rejected growing calls for a ceasefire, is said to be under pressure from the US to scale back the assault.