Why Israel’s having some of its biggest protests since the war in Gaza began began? Israeli Policy Forum Press Secretary Shira Efron
While most Israelis are protesting the restart of the war in regards to the safety and wellbeing of the hostages, a growing number are also acknowledging the suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. At that same protest Saturday night in Tel Aviv, a few dozen held a kind of vigil for children killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza, holding photos of them in the crowd along with memorial candles. Others carried signs that said “Stop the Genocide,” referring to more than 50,000 Palestinians who have been killed in the war, according to Gaza health officials.
Shira Efron, research director of the nonpartisan Israel Policy Forum, says the Israeli government’s return to war dovetails with Netanyahu’s need to appease his far-right political partners to maintain his coalition.
The Israeli public is exhausted. It’s in trauma,” she says. The politics of the conflict are not unimportant for the Israeli government, which is adamant about returning to war.
Omer Vinkur, a 26-year-old student at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, marched near the prime minister’s residence on Sunday wearing a sticker on his shirt with the number 533 — the number of days that hostages have been held in Gaza since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks on Israel. He said that he showed up to remind the government that it has a responsibility to the people in Gaza.
Source: Why Israel’s having some of its biggest protests since the war in Gaza began
Why Israel’s having some of its biggest protests since the war in Gaza began: Ami Dror and Einav Tsangauker
“We do not accept this reality,” he said. “And we do not accept the theft of our country, and the theft of our security. We came to say this loud and clear.”
Before the war in Gaza started, Ami Dror was leader of many protests against judicial reform. He recognized that the protests then — and now — have little influence on the government’s decisions, but still he said it’s important to show up.
“Those in power can say whatever they want. He said at a protest in Jerusalem that they have tools. “We have marches, protests, and also civil disobedience — when we decide to shut the state down — and that’s exactly what needs to happen.”
At a demonstration Saturday night that packed the streets of central Tel Aviv, Einav Tsangauker, whose son Matan is still being held by Hamas in Gaza, spoke to the crowd saying that Netanyahu chose to strengthen his political future by “sacrificing” the remaining hostages and restarting the war.
“This is a real alarm,” she said, encouraging protesters to keep showing up every day until a new deal is signed. “You are our chance to get the hostages out of the hell in Gaza.”
Source: Why Israel’s having some of its biggest protests since the war in Gaza began
“It’s all in”: Israel’s security system is not violated by genocide or “hasting no shame”
The government is not guilty of genocide. And Netanyahu has said those claiming that the offensive in Gaza is for political gain “have no shame” and accused them of echoing “Hamas propaganda.”
The Israel Democracy Institute’s Guy Lurie said the Minister of Justice was taking advantage of the public’s attention being off the ball to hastily change Israel’s judicial system.
Protesters say they’re especially concerned about several recent moves: the government’s efforts to fire the attorney general and domestic security chief, who both serve as watchdogs on the prime minister’s policies, and legislation expected to pass Thursday that would grant the ruling coalition more partisan influence over judicial appointments.
Deflecting criticism over his government’s decisions, Netanyahu said Saturday: “There will be no civil war, and the State of Israel will remain a democratic country.”
Over more than 50 days she was moved from place to place, mostly aboveground, at first alone with her captors and then held with other hostages. Though she told her captors she suffered from a chronic digestive disease, she said she was not provided with any medication. She said she was held in a hospital and in private residences and that after her release, she was in a tunnel.
Ms. Gritzewsky said that she was told about her military service. (She completed her military duty a decade ago.) One of her captors hugged her and told her, while pointing his pistol at her, that even if there was a deal, she would not be released because he wanted to marry her and have her children, she said. She said one told her he was a lawyer and the other was a mathematics teacher. They stole her earrings and bracelet, she said.
She knew of Mr. Zangauker being kidnapped to Gaza, but she never heard the captor say that he was a hostage from Ofakim.
A United Nations report released last year found signs that participants in the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel committed sexual violence in multiple locations and said that some hostages held in Gaza had been subjected to rape and sexual torture. A U.N. commission alleged that Israel used sexual and gender-based violence during its campaign in Gaza.
The Academy Award for best documentary was won by a Palestinian-Israeli film collective that included Mr. Ballal. During the filming of the film, filmed in Masafer Yatta, Israeli forces demolished the homes of West Bank residents in order to create a live-fire military training ground.
After repeated attacks, Palestinian residents in the southern West Bank, including from Mr. Hamdan’s village, took their case to the Israeli Supreme Court at the end of 2023, arguing that Israeli security forces were not protecting them from attacks, and that as a result, some villagers had fled their homes.
Witness videos obtained and reviewed by The New York Times showed part of the assault. A masked man tries to punch one of the activists in dash cam and cellphone footage that he posted on his Facebook page. Several masked men run toward the car and smash it with a rock while the activists retreat to their cars.
The group of Israeli assailants, some masked, soon joined the others on the outskirts of the village, where they attacked two Palestinian homes, they said.
A fieldworker for the Israeli group B’Tselem and other Palestinians said the conflict began after the town’s residents tried to drive away Israel’s shepherds from their land.
The two sides gave differing accounts of the events surrounding Mr Ballal. In a statement, the Israeli military said “several terrorists” had hurled stones at Israeli vehicles, igniting a violent confrontation in which Israelis and Palestinians threw rocks at one another.
President Trump has taken a softer stance on settler violence, canceling sanctions imposed by the Biden administration against individuals accused of carrying out violent acts against Palestinians. A confirmation hearing for Mr. Trump’s pick for ambassador to Israel, Michael Huckabee, was underway on Tuesday.
Israeli officials rarely crack down on the perpetrators, according to human rights groups. According to Yesh Din, a vast majority of police investigations into attacks by Israelis on Palestinians are closed without charges.
One Israeli settler, a minor, was also detained. The Israeli police said he had been released to receive medical treatment and would be questioned later.
The Israeli authorities on Tuesday released a Palestinian director of an Oscar-winning documentary who was detained overnight after what he and witnesses said was an attack by Israeli settlers in the West Bank.