They called on the incoming minister Katz to “express an explicit commitment to the end of the war and to carry out a comprehensive deal for the immediate return of all the abductees”.

Meanwhile, Tel Aviv's Mayor Ron Huldai announced that the city's municipal workers are free to join Monday's strike "as a sign of solidarity with the abductees and their families".

It is no longer just a fringe event where someone like Travis Walton, the mustachioed professed abductee portrayed in “Fire In the Sky,” is mobbed like Harry Styles.

An anonymous Israeli government official told local media on Saturday that Israel would "under no circumstances agree to end the war as part of an agreement to free our abductees".

"Our mission is to locate and return the abductees home," the IDF and ISA said on Saturday.