‘We have to leave Gaza’: tens of thousands of Israelis protest against the government

Despite the heat, there are an estimated tens of thousands of people on Saturday evening. Like every weekend, this evening is demonstrated in the center of Tel Aviv. On the start-road, in addition to the headquarters of the Israeli army, the anger focuses on the news of last week: the Israeli security cabinet has decided to occupy and depoll in Gaza city militarily.

“The government says that it is not willing to negotiate [over een bestand] to continue, but the war wants to continue and conquer Gaza, “says demonstrant Ayelet Nahum (53).” This will not only kill the hostages, but also destroy Israel. “

Earlier that evening, speeches were given by family members of hostages in Gaza. According to them, the Security Cabinet with the announced plans gives up the lives of their family members. Einav Zangauker, mother of Matan Zangauker from Kibbutz Nir Oz, who has been held in Gaza since 7 October 2023, called the Israeli cabinet the “cabinet of death.”

The planned invasion and military occupation of Gaza City calls psychologist Miri Ben Rafael (72) “very bad news.” She wears a T-shirt with the text ‘Enough’ in Arabic and Hebrew. “This happens because of political power, not because of the country. We have to leave Gaza, and the hostages have to come home.”

Strategic considerations

She gets support from her retired girlfriend Lea Miran (75). “Bullshit,” she calls the statements of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu that an invasion of Gaza City except to the “destruction” of Hamas will lead to the hostages. “Bibi wants to stay on his seat.”

The skepticism does not only sound on the street in Tel Aviv. From the Israeli army leadership, security services and political opposition, criticism of the decision sounded in the past week, not on the basis of humanitarian, but strategic considerations.

Anonymous members of the Israeli Security Cabinet said to the Israeli news website last week The Jerusalem Post That the intake of Gaza City will not lead to the beating of Hamas, nor bringing home the hostages. Army chef Eyal Zamir would have told the security cabinet that the goal of getting the hostages back had to be canceled from the plan.

“We have been fighting for two years, but without strategy,” thinks demonstrant forest mat Eilat (50), who works in life insurance. “Bibi says he wants to free the Gazans of Hamas. But the war has been taking two years and there is no political solution. Wars must end with a file and a political agreement.”

This will not only kill the hostages, but also destroy Israel

The decision of the Security Cabinet last week is the next step in what renowned genocide scientists and human rights organizations call Israel’s genocide on the Palestinians. Gaza City is largely in ruins due to the earlier attacks of the army; The rest is now also in danger of being destroyed. The population hangs expulsion above the head, to the south of Gaza. With that, the entire north of Gaza would be ethnically purified, after the Israeli army in October last year already North Gaza (Jabalia, Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia) largely deputed and flat.

Already, according to recent UN, the army has control over 87 percent of Gaza through military zones and ‘evacuation trees’. In the heavily destroyed Gaza City, an estimated million Palestinians stay. Many of them were previously forced displaced and returned to the north during the temporary file.

Refugee camps

During a press conference in Jerusalem on Sunday afternoon, Prime Minister Netanyahu said that the army will also focus on refugee camps in Central Gaza. Israeli leaders previously announced that he wanted to lock up on the Palestinians in the south in a “concentration zone” as a rise to ethnic cleansing (called “voluntary migration” by Israeli politicians).

In Tel Aviv, the weekly protests still almost exclusively focus on the fate of the hostages and Israeli soldiers in Gaza. Yet a shift is perceptible in the margins. This evening there are various groups that demonstrate against the Israeli occupation and the starvation in Gaza. They form a minority: a recent poll shows that the majority of the Jewish-Israeli population is not worried about the famine in Gaza.

Demonstrant Ayelet Nahum says he has compassion with the population in Gaza, but also question the starvation: “Every time I eat, think of the people in Gaza. Although my daughter was in Gaza and said there was enough food” – her daughter served as a nurse for the army in Gaza.

Two weeks ago, the prominent Israeli human rights organization B’tselem, following various experts, human rights organizations and NGOs, spoke in a report of genocide in Gaza. This is also propagated by a few demonstrators: for example, teacher of art history and art critic Gilad Melzer (60) holds a sign with a photo of a Palestinian child in Gaza and the text ‘Genocide’.

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According to Melzer, the organizers of the central protest no longer want his movement (‘look the occupation in the eyes’) is part of it, because the focus must remain on the Israeli hostages. While demonstrators dressed in Israeli flags pass him on all sides, Melzer addresses them through a megaphone. “Our message is that Israelis service [in het leger] must refuse because this is an illegal war. “

According to Melzer, political survival is not the only motivation of the cabinet: “I believe they want to conquer Gaza and set up settlements there.” He makes a connection between Gaza and the West Bank: “In both cases it is about occupation, building settlements, and expropriation of Palestinians.”

Official goals

Israël’s official goals in Gaza to beat Hamas and get the hostages at home, according to Melzer, contradicted each other. He emphasizes that Hamas said shortly after October 2023 that it was willing to release all prisoners in exchange for a cease-fire and Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza. Last January there was a phased agreement with Hamas, “but Israel refused to switch to phase two of the file.”

“The only way to get the citizens and prisoners of war at home taken by Hamas is through an agreement, and not under pressure or through war. Every time Israel tried to do that with violence, it came home with dead bodies. Only a few came home alive.”

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