Rel­a­tives of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza protest­ed Sat­ur­day out­side the home of Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu, ex­press­ing frus­tra­tion over his gov­ern­ment’s seem­ing lack of progress in get­ting the more than 100 cap­tives re­leased as the war in Gaza drags on.

A group rep­re­sent­ing fam­i­lies of the hostages said they had “begged for 105 days” and now de­mand­ed that the gov­ern­ment show lead­er­ship and take bold steps to free the hostages. A mem­ber of Is­rael’s War Cab­i­net has called a cease-fire the on­ly way to se­cure their re­lease, a com­ment that im­plied crit­i­cism of Is­rael’s cur­rent strat­e­gy.

The protest out­side the prime min­is­ter’s home and the re­mark by for­mer Is­raeli army chief Ga­di Eisenkot were among signs of grow­ing strife in Is­rael over the di­rec­tion of the war in its fourth month. Ne­tanyahu has said he will push for “com­plete vic­to­ry” against Hamas but has not out­lined how he would achieve it.

Crit­ics have ac­cused him of pre­vent­ing a Cab­i­net-lev­el de­bate about a post-war sce­nario for Gaza, al­leg­ing Ne­tanyahu was stalling in hopes of avoid­ing con­flict that could po­ten­tial­ly break up his right-wing rul­ing coali­tion.

Is­rael launched its war against Hamas fol­low­ing the mil­i­tant group’s un­prece­dent­ed Oct. 7 at­tack that killed about 1,200 peo­ple, most­ly civil­ians, in Is­rael and saw about 250 oth­ers tak­en hostage from the coun­try’s south. Health au­thor­i­ties in Hamas-ruled Gaza say Is­rael’s of­fen­sive has killed near­ly 25,000 Pales­tini­ans, most of them women and chil­dren.

The of­fen­sive, one of the most de­struc­tive mil­i­tary cam­paigns in re­cent his­to­ry, has pul­ver­ized much of the ter­ri­to­ry and dis­placed more than 80% of its pop­u­la­tion of 2.3 mil­lion peo­ple. An Is­raeli block­ade that al­lows on­ly a trick­le of aid in­to Gaza has led to wide­spread hunger and out­breaks of dis­ease, Unit­ed Na­tions of­fi­cials have said.

Ne­tanyahu has in­sist­ed that the on­ly way to se­cure the hostages’ re­turn is by crush­ing Hamas through mil­i­tary means. But rel­a­tives of the re­main­ing cap­tives have been es­ca­lat­ing their cam­paign seek­ing a deal for the re­lease of their loved ones.

More than 100 hostages, most­ly women and chil­dren, were re­leased dur­ing a brief No­vem­ber cease­fire in ex­change for the re­lease of Pales­tin­ian women and mi­nors im­pris­oned by Is­rael. Is­rael has said that more than 130 hostages re­main in Gaza, but on­ly about 100 are be­lieved to be alive.

On Fri­day, the fa­ther of a 28-year-old man who has been held by Hamas since Oct. 7 be­gan what he called a hunger strike out­side Ne­tanyahu’s home in the coastal town of Cae­sarea.

Eli Shtivi, whose son Idan was among the peo­ple kid­napped from a mu­sic fes­ti­val in south­ern Is­rael, pledged to eat on­ly a quar­ter of a pi­ta a day — to show how lit­tle food some hostages were re­port­ed­ly giv­en on some days— un­til the prime min­is­ter agreed to meet with him. Dozens of peo­ple joined Shtivi late Fri­day and were still there Sat­ur­day morn­ing.

Eisenkot, the for­mer army chief who is one of the five mem­bers of Is­rael’s War Cab­i­net, has called in­to ques­tion Ne­tanyahu’s in­sis­tence that on­ly Is­rael’s blis­ter­ing air and ground of­fen­sive would bring the hostages home.

Eisenkot, whose son was killed in De­cem­ber while fight­ing in Gaza, said dur­ing a tele­vi­sion in­ter­view late Thurs­day that claim­ing the cap­tives could be freed with­out a deal and a cease-fire “is to spread il­lu­sions.”

The hostages “will on­ly re­turn alive if there is a deal, linked to a sig­nif­i­cant pause in fight­ing,” he said. Dra­mat­ic res­cue op­er­a­tions are un­like­ly be­cause the hostages are ap­par­ent­ly spread out, many of them in un­der­ground tun­nels, he said.

As part of its search for the hostages, Is­rael’s mil­i­tary dropped leaflets on the ter­ri­to­ry’s south­ern­most town of Rafah that asked peo­ple to pro­vide in­for­ma­tion about the cap­tives. The leaflets, with pho­tos of dozens of hostages, car­ried a mes­sage sug­gest­ing ben­e­fits for any­one pro­vid­ing in­for­ma­tion.

“You want to re­turn home? Please re­port if you iden­ti­fied one of them,” read the mes­sage, which al­so list­ed a phone num­ber and a link to a web­site con­tain­ing im­ages and names of the hostages in Ara­bic.

In Gaza, res­i­dents reached by phone fol­low­ing the end of a sev­en-day com­mu­ni­ca­tions black­out re­port­ed heavy bom­bard­ment and fight­ing be­tween mil­i­tants and Is­raeli troops Sat­ur­day morn­ing in and around the south­ern city of Khan You­nis and the ur­ban refugee camp of Ja­baliya in the north.

Is­raeli war­planes and shelling ham­mered ar­eas in and east of Khan You­nis, with gun bat­tles rag­ing overnight in­to the ear­ly morn­ing in Bani Suheila, a town on the city’s out­skirts, res­i­dents said. The town is one of the hotspots in Is­rael’s mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions in the Khan You­nis area.

Hal­i­ma Ab­del-Rah­man, a woman dis­placed from north­ern Gaza who has shel­tered in Bani Suheila since No­vem­ber, said Is­raeli airstrikes hit sev­er­al build­ings in the town over the last cou­ple of days and that bomb­ing was in­tense overnight in­to Sat­ur­day.

The fight­ing has forced many fam­i­lies to leave their homes, many of which were re­duced to rub­ble, and Bani Suheila is large­ly emp­ty, she said.

In Ja­baliya, “the heavy bomb­ing re­turned,” with Is­raeli war­planes strik­ing build­ings and open ar­eas, lo­cal fish­er­man As­sad Abu Rad­wan said.

Is­rael with­drew a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of troops from the north­ern half of Gaza ear­li­er this week af­ter the mil­i­tary said it had bro­ken up Hamas com­mand struc­tures there. How­ev­er, Hamas gun­men con­tin­ued putting up re­sis­tance in parts of north­ern Gaza, prompt­ing re­newed ques­tions in Is­rael about the fea­si­bil­i­ty of the gov­ern­ment’s stat­ed goal of crush­ing Hamas.

In the Is­raeli-oc­cu­pied West Bank, mean­while, mourn­ers gath­ered Sat­ur­day for the fu­ner­al of a 17-year-old Amer­i­can Pales­tin­ian who was shot and killed a day ear­li­er near the city of Ra­mal­lah.

The cir­cum­stances of the shoot­ing re­mained un­clear Sat­ur­day.

In a state­ment, Is­raeli po­lice said they re­ceived a re­port Fri­day re­gard­ing a “firearm dis­charge, os­ten­si­bly in­volv­ing an off-du­ty law en­force­ment of­fi­cer, a sol­dier and a civil­ian.” Po­lice did not iden­ti­fy who fired the shot but de­scribed the shoot­ing as tak­ing place over peo­ple “pur­port­ed­ly en­gaged in rock-throw­ing ac­tiv­i­ties” along a main high­way.

Po­lice said the in­ci­dent was be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed, in­clud­ing by its in­ter­nal af­fairs de­part­ment.

The Is­raeli mil­i­tary did not im­me­di­ate­ly re­spond to a re­quest for com­ment.

Friends of the teenag­er iden­ti­fied him as Taw­fiq Ajaq, and said the fam­i­ly had re­turned to its home vil­lage in the West Bank from Har­vey, Louisiana, about a year ago.

Asked about the shoot­ing, U.S. na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty spokesman John Kir­by said of­fi­cials at the White House were “se­ri­ous­ly con­cerned about these re­ports.”

“We don’t have per­fect con­text about ex­act­ly what hap­pened here,” Kir­by said. “Se­ri­ous­ly con­cerned about it. And we’re go­ing to be in con­stant touch with coun­ter­parts in the re­gion to — to get more in­for­ma­tion.”

In re­cent months, the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion has re­peat­ed­ly ex­pressed con­cern about grow­ing volatil­i­ty in the West Bank, in­clud­ing vi­o­lence by set­tlers against Pales­tini­ans.

Be­ca­toros re­port­ed from Athens. Greece. Jon Gam­brell in Jerusalem and Na­jib Jobain in Rafah, Gaza Strip con­tributed to this re­port

JERUSALEM (AP) —