Abhorrence of Israel’s devastating war in Gaza has resonated for months in capitals and in university campuses abroad. Now, a growing number of Israelis are speaking out against what they describe as atrocities carried out in their name in the Palestinian enclave.
Israeli protesters are holding aloft portraits of Palestinian children killed in Gaza. Academics and authors, politicians and retired military leaders are accusing the Israeli government of indiscriminate killing and war crimes.
In the early months of the war, the vast majority of Israelis considered the offensive a just and necessary response to the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, even if they were skeptical that the government’s long-term goal of eliminating Hamas was attainable, opinion polls showed.
Despite that, a majority of Israelis have long wanted a deal that would end the war in exchange of the release of all the hostages still held in Gaza and relieve soldiers exhausted by months of deadly conflict, according to the polls.
But in recent months, a small but increasingly vocal minority has made anguished calls to end the war on moral grounds, even if many Israelis aren’t even aware such protests are even happening. Many of the protesters may have supported Israel’s right to self-defense after the Hamas attack, but many now say it has gone way too far and contravenes their values.
“We are on the edge of the abyss,” said Tamar Parush, 56, a lecturer in sociology at Sapir College in southern Israel, speaking at a recent antiwar protest attended by hundreds of Israelis at the busy Shaar Hanegev junction near the border with Gaza.
“Revenge is not a policy,” she said, adding: “We could have fought a smarter war.”
