Bar Kupershtein, who was released from Hamas captivity on Oct. 13, is planning to lead a mass tefillin-laying event at 10 a.m. on Friday at Hostage Square in Tel Aviv.

“I want all of you to put on tefillin together with me—my dream while in captivity was to put on tefillin, and we’ll do it for the release of all our brothers who are still there,” the former abductee said on Tuesday to an audience that gathered at Hostage Square in front of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, according to Hebrew-language outlet Kikar Hashabat.

Kupershtein thanked the crowd for taking part in the campaign to retrieve the 251 hostages kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023.

“I have no words to describe all the love and everything you’re doing for me and for all the hostages,” he was quoted as saying.

“With all the rehabilitation, I said to myself that I have to come here to say thank you, and truly express my appreciation for everything you’ve done for me. I realized that all this movement began right here, from this tent—and it’s simply moving,” he added.

Thirteen bodies of deceased hostages remain in Gaza. Under the terms of the ceasefire—which came into effect on Oct. 10—Hamas was required to return all hostages, alive and dead, to Israel within 72 hours.

Jerusalem has condemned the terrorist group, saying that delaying the recovery of the bodies constitutes a direct violation of the ceasefire agreement.

Since Oct. 10, terrorists in Gaza have killed three Israel Defense Forces soldiers.

On Tuesday, Master Sgt. (res.) Yona Efraim Feldbaum, 27, was killed when “enemy fire” struck his bulldozer during operations in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, according to Israel’s Army Radio.

The military death toll since the start of the ground offensive in Gaza on Oct. 27, 2023, stands at 471, while the total number of Israeli soldiers killed across all fronts since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre has risen to 921.

The attack prompted retaliatory strikes by the IDF on Tuesday night, followed the next morning with the military’s reaffirming of its commitment to uphold the U.S.-brokered ceasefire in Gaza.

“Following a series of significant strikes in which dozens of terror targets and terrorists were attacked, the IDF has begun renewed enforcement of the agreement after its violation by the Hamas terror organization,” the military said.

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