Campaigners and relatives call for 17 women and children held by Hamas to be released immediately

CAMPAIGNERS and relatives ­yesterday demanded these 17 women and children still held by Hamas are released immediately.

Of the 137 remaining captives underground in Gaza, just two are kids and 15 are women.

Top row from left: Eden Zecharya, Eden Yerushalmi, Arbel Yehoud, Judy Weinstein, Doron Steinbrecher, Naama Levy, Middle row from left: Inbar Haiman, Daniel Gilboa, Amit Buskila, Romi Gonen, Agam Berger, Noa Argamani, bottom row from left: Liri Albag, Ariel Bibas, Shiri Bibas, Karina Ariev, Kfir Bibas

And The Sun is today printing the photos of each of them to back the calls for their freedom.

Last month, the pics of all 32 child hostages were printed in our Bring Them Home call.

Since then, 30 have been released during a temporary ceasefire, but youngest hostage Kfir Bibas, ten months, and his four-year-old brother Ariel are still being held.

Their mother Shiri is 32 is one of the 15 women hostages who are aged 18-70, although all but three are under 30.

Wonder Woman actress Gal Gadot – who posted our child hostages front page to her 109m Instagram followers – led the calls for action.

She said: “The world has failed the women of October 7.

“We claim we stand against rape, violence against women, we will not let women be victimised and then silenced. We say we believe women, stand with women speak out for women.

“On October 7, the World witnessed Hamas carrying out its violent plans in real time. Within hours of the October 7 attack, the first blood-chilling video emerged of Shani Louk being paraded naked and defiled by her proud assailants.

“Yet two months later women are still hostages to these rapists and the world has failed to call this situation what it is: an urgent emergency that demands a decisive response.

“This is our moment as women and allies of women to act. I am beseeching all those who have done so much for women’s rights globally – from the UN, to the Human Rights Community to please join in the demand that Hama release every single woman hostage immediately – not after the next round of international mediation, not after another day.

“These women cannot survive another moment of his horror.”

The families of the hostages have been campaigning non-stop for their release since October 7, and relatives once again called for the immediate release of the women.

Yarden Gonen, the sister of Romi Gonen, 23, who was kidnapped from the Supernova music festival, said: “My sister was kidnapped after being shot, while watching her best friend being murdered.

“To all the women in the world, we should not have to explain what it means to be a woman, what it means to walk in the street and feel there is a threat to my life at any given moment.

“Imagine how a woman hostage feels. She has no time. It’s in your hands, I and all the women here beside me are doing everything we can to return them, I demand that you do the same.”

Karina Ariev, 19, is a surveillance soldier who was taken captive when Hamas terrorists attacked her base at Nahal Oz.

She made a frantic phone call to her family moments before being snatched to tell them: “I love you, continue with your life.”

Her sister Sasha Ariev said: “Every minute, every second that my sister is there, there is a danger to her life, a danger to the lives of them all, to all the girls with her.

“These girls must return, they will be the voice of women and of all hostages and of all those who did not survive this hell.”

And Yamit Ashkenazi, sister of veterinary nurse Doron Steinbrecher, 30, taken from her apartment in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, said: “My family was abandoned on October 7 and all the hostages were also abandoned. I will not let anyone abandon my sister again.”

Shani Yerushalmi, sister of Eden Yerushalmi, 24, who was also taken hostage at the music festival, added: “Eden is a girl everyone loves, always happy, always laughing. That same day she called us frightened, hiding in a car for an hour as her best friends bled to death beside her.

“She was afraid to cry, her voice broke, I asked her not to cry so they wouldn’t hear her. We started hearing voices in Arabic and decided to record the call, she whispered ‘they’re catching me’ and we knew those were her last moments.

“A young woman who just came to work and we don’t know her situation.”

Hamas has said that the only two child hostages not so far released – Ariel and Kfir Bibas – were killed in Israeli bombing raids, but Israel has said it has not seen official confirmation.

A furious row has erupted over the fate of the women targeted on October 7.

The Sun told yesterday how sympathy for the Palestinian cause has blinded many campaigners to the horror women suffered at the hands of brutal Hamas savages.

There has been a deafening silence from those who would normally be outraged by the rape and murder of women.

The United Nations organisation UN Women – which calls itself “the global champion for gender equality” – had nothing initially to say after the mass rapes on October 7.

It published a report on women in the region a few days later, but remained silent on the sexual violence.

It finally acknowledged the sexual attacks nearly two months later when it said it was “alarmed by the numerous accounts of gender-based atrocities and sexual violence”.

But Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen blasted the statement as “weak and late”.