Israel’s anti-war activists struggle to be heard - ‘We must reach some other solution and end the cycle of bloodshed’

“A ceasefire isn’t a very popular position among the Israeli public right now,” says Yahli Agai holding a banner saying “ceasefire now” at a small rally in front of the Israeli military headquarters in Tel Aviv. The demonstration in the liberal Israeli city on October 28th was the first time the 18-year-old Israeli had felt safe enough to protest against the war.

After five people in Haifa were arrested for holding a solidarity vigil for Gaza earlier last month, Israeli police commissioner Kobi Shabtai warned that there would be “zero tolerance” for demonstrations held in support of Gaza.

In the end, the ceasefire rally took place in Tel Aviv without obstruction and near another rally for the some 240 hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

“A lot of people are scared and traumatised and think only in terms of winning the war,” says Agai. “So the idea of a ceasefire seems pretty offensive to them – it’s like giving up to the people who murdered children.”

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But to Agai, this view is misguided: “If for the past decades, we’ve been bombing Gaza, and causing a continuous humanitarian crisis, and starving people and murdering people in an attempt to erase them and it hasn’t really worked out, why would it work out this time? We must reach some other solution and end the cycle of bloodshed.”

“My family values are not aligned with more violence,” says Magen Inon, whose parents were murdered by Hamas militants on October 7th. Yakovi and Bilha Inon lived on a farm in Netiv HaAsara near the Gaza border and had Palestinian and Bedouin friends.“The violence in this case was just completely blind and it affected many living near the border who I think would have hoped for peace, in the long term at least,” he says.

Speaking on a call with The Irish Times, Inon says the continuing war on Gaza means that his family “cannot just mourn our parents”. He believes both Palestinians and Israelis have leaders who “feed off hate and that can’t be the way forward ... I’m struggling to see how more violence would solve anything.”

Mairav Zonszein, a senior analyst on Israel-Palestine with the International Crisis Group, says calls for a ceasefire have begun in Israel only recently and are coming primarily from “a very small group of leftists”.

Public opposition to the ground invasion of Gaza is primarily focused on efforts to bring home the hostages held by Hamas. “The families of these hostages are the only voice out of Israel right now but they’re not calling for a ceasefire, they’re calling for a prisoner exchange or hostage release immediately,” says Zonszein. “They are obviously concerned about the ground invasion because of how it might affect the wellbeing of their families in captivity.”

Many left-leaning activists and Arab-Israeli citizens have reported an increasingly repressive climate for free speech since the war began. Jude Liemburg who is involved in Looking the Occupation in the Eye, a collective of Israeli human rights activists focused on the occupied West Bank, says: “You’re not allowed to say anything regarding Palestinians or people get crucified on social media, or fired from their work.”

Israel Frey, an ultra-Orthodox Israeli journalist, was targeted by far-right activists and forced into hiding after he recited a Jewish mourning prayer for victims of the war including in Gaza; in the city of Tiberias an Arab teacher was suspended for following a Palestinian media account on Instagram.

“The crackdown is the result of a widespread and co-ordinated effort among government offices, official Israeli institutions and extremist right-wing groups, and has targeted Palestinian citizens and others who voice dissent against Israel’s actions in Gaza or express any support for the Palestinian people in Gaza,” stated Adalah, a legal centre focused on Arab minority rights in Israel, in a press release.

Last month the Israeli public broadcaster Kan reported that the war cabinet led by Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu would progress legislation that would authorise Israeli police to use live ammunition against protesters in wartime. An Israeli police spokesperson said a comprehensive review of the force’s arrangements for handling public disorder and unrest had taken place. including whether the use of live ammunition should be authorised.

Zonszein does not believe this proposal will necessarily be enacted by the Israeli war cabinet but “the fact that they’re talking that way is already having a major chilling effect”. Liemburg says that if passed, the plan to ease live-fire rules would be “another nail in the coffin for democracy”.