In central Tel Aviv, the main stage has now been dismantled in Hostages Square, the focal point for the campaign over the past two years to bring back Israelis held in Gaza.
Nearby, signs and posters have been taken down, and the Hostages and Missing Families Forum has vacated the offices that served as its nerve centre. Of the 251 hostages seized by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups in the 7 October 2023 attacks, 168 have been brought back alive from Gaza, eight have been rescued. Only one deceased hostage, Ran Gvili, remains.
With songs and prayers instead of mass rallies, the Gvili family and a small crowd of supporters assemble in Hostages Square each Friday to mark the start of the Jewish Sabbath; this week, a candle for the Hanukkah holiday was also lit.
They are determined to bring back the young police officer who was killed by Hamas fighters after he rushed to help people being attacked in Kibbutz Alumim in southern Israel in October 2023.
"I feel every day is still the 7 October. We didn't pass the 7 October, but we are strong, and we're waiting for him. We do whatever we need," says Itzik Gvili, Ran's father. "This gives us hope: the support of the people."
From the start, people power has been key to the hostage families. As its operations wind down, members of the Hostages Families Forum have been reflecting on its extraordinary evolution which turned the grassroots group into a powerful international lobbying force.
In the terrible aftermath of the 2023 Hamas-led assault on southern Israel, which also killed some 1,200 people, a huge group of distraught relatives gathered for the first time in Tel Aviv desperately seeking answers about their missing loved ones. Because of the incoming rocket fire from Gaza, they met in an underground car park.
"We were together, shocked, and it fell on me that this is actually real, that now we are going to face this unbelievable challenge of understanding where all these people are, getting them home," recalls Gil Dickmann, whose cousin Carmel Gat had been snatched from Kibbutz Be'eri.
"And the second thing is that we're going to do this together. I'm not going to stand alone."
The formation of the new forum, with its slogan: "Bring them home now", gave the hostages' families a much-needed sense of regaining control.
"It was very, very powerful to feel that when the government and Israeli state, in a way collapsed in those very first few days after 7 October, it felt like nothing was working, what was working was Israeli society," Mr Dickmann says. "So many wonderful people came to help. That brought me a lot of hope."
Dividing its efforts between supporting the families - many of whom were bereaved and displaced from their homes following the attacks - and campaigning in Israel and around the world, the Hostages Families Forum worked with more than 10,000 volunteers. They included former Israeli diplomats, lawyers and security officials.
Funded entirely by donations, it began to pay some staff, and a high-tech company loaned its central Tel Aviv office space.
In November 2023 - more than six weeks into the brutal war in Gaza, which had by then killed more than 14,000 Palestinians according to the Hamas-run health ministry - Israel and Hamas agreed to a Qatar-mediated truce.
This saw most women and children hostages returned in exchange for Israel releasing more than 240 Palestinian prisoners, all women and children. Hamas also freed some foreign nationals.
But after a week, the fighting resumed with ferocity. About half of the hostages were left in Gaza. In December, three Israeli hostages were killed by Israeli soldiers in Gaza despite the fact they were shirtless, waving a makeshift white flag, and calling out in Hebrew.
Those were difficult days for the Hostages Families Forum and in early 2024, with polls suggesting more Israelis prioritised eliminating Hamas over the return of those still held captive, it brought in political strategist, Lior Chorev, as campaign man
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