Israel protesters intensify pressure against plan to expand Gaza war

10 August 2025 Share Save Jack Burgess BBC News Share Save

Watch: The BBC’s Emir Nader reports from protests against PM Netanyahu’s plans for Gaza

Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets across Israel to oppose the government’s plan to expand its military operation in Gaza. On Friday, Israel’s security cabinet approved five principles to end the war that included ‘taking security control’ over the Gaza Strip, with the Israeli military saying it would “prepare for taking control” of Gaza City. Protesters, including family members of 50 hostages in Gaza, 20 of whom are still thought to be alive, fear the plan puts the lives of hostages at risk, and urged the government to secure their release. Israeli leaders have rejected criticism of their plan, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying “this will help free our hostages”.

EPA Protesters flood a street in Tel Aviv

A group representing families of the hostages said on X: “Expanding the fighting endangers the hostages and the soldiers – the people of Israel are not willing to risk them!” One protester Shakha, rallying in Jerusalem on Saturday, told the BBC: “We want the war to end because our hostages are dying there, and we need them all to be home now.” “Whatever it takes to do, we need to do it. And if it needs to stop the war, we’ll stop the war.” Among the protesters in Jerusalem was a former soldier who told the BBC he is now refusing to serve. Max Kresch said he was a combat soldier at the beginning of the war and “has since refused.” “We’re over 350 soldiers who served during the war and we’re refusing to continue to serve in Netanyahu’s political war that endangers the hostages (and) starving innocent Palestinians in Gaza,” he said. The Times of Israel reported that family members of hostages and soldiers at a protest in Tel Aviv near the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) headquarters called on other soldiers to refuse to serve in the expanded military operation to protect hostages. The mother of one of the hostages has called for a general strike in Israel, and the main opposition leader, Yair Lapid, said it would be a “justified and worthy” response. However, the country’s main labour union will not back a strike, according to the Times of Israel. During Saturday night’s demonstrations, Tel Aviv’s Ayalon Highway was blocked by protesters who lit bonfires. Three suspects were arrested and “materials intended for setting fires on main roads” were seized, Israeli police said.

EPA The moment a bonfire was lit on Ayalon Highway during Saturday night’s protest in Tel Aviv

Netanyahu has also faced strong opposition from the army’s Chief of Staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir who, according to Israeli media, had warned the prime minister that a full occupation of Gaza was “tantamount to walking into a trap” and would endanger the living hostages. Polls suggest most of the Israeli public favour a deal with Hamas for the release of the hostages and the end of the war. Netanyahu had told Fox News earlier this week that Israel planned to occupy of the entire Gaza Strip and eventually “hand it over to Arab forces”. “We are not going to occupy Gaza – we are going to free Gaza from Hamas,” Netanyahu said on X on Friday. “This will help free our hostages and ensure Gaza does not pose a threat to Israel in the future.” The Israeli security cabinet’s plan lists five “principles” for ending the war: disarming Hamas, returning all hostages, demilitarising the Gaza Strip, taking security control of the territory, and establishing “an alternative civil administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority”. A top UN official earlier this week warned that a complete military takeover of Gaza City would risk “catastrophic consequences” for Palestinians civilians and hostages. Up to one million Palestinians live in Gaza City in the north of the Gaza Strip, which was the enclave’s most populous city before the war. The UK, France, Canada and several other countries have condemned Israel’s decision and Germany announced that it would halt its military exports to Israel in response. The United Nations Security Council will meet on Sunday to discuss Israel’s plan.

Huge crowds gather in Israel calling for hostage deal and end to Gaza war

17 August 2025 Share Save Asya Robins BBC News Share Save

Watch: Protesters block Israeli road demanding hostage deal and war end

Hundreds of thousands of people have gathered in Israel to call for an end to the Gaza war and a deal to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas. The largest crowd was seen in Tel Aviv’s “Hostages Square” on Sunday, with the organisers saying the government’s plans to seize control of Gaza City risked the lives of around 20 hostages still being held by Hamas. A one-day national strike – part of wider protests – closed roads, offices and universities in some areas. Nearly 40 people were arrested during the day. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticised the protests, saying they would “harden Hamas’s stance” and would only slow down the release of the hostages.

Getty Images “Hostages Square” on Sunday in Tel Aviv

Far-right Israeli minister Bezalel Smotrich also denounced the protests, describing them as a “harmful campaign that plays into the hands of Hamas”. In Tel Aviv, riot police violently broke up a protest outside the headquarters of the prime minister’s Likud party. The clashes in the city followed what was thought to have been the largest rally in 22 months of war. Smaller protests took place across Israel. The national strike was demanded by the families of hostages and others opposed to the expansion of the war. Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan and a leading figure in the Hostage and Missing Families Forum, said the group demanded “a comprehensive and achievable agreement and an end to the war”. “We demand what is rightfully ours – our children,” she told the crowd in Tel Aviv. “The Israeli government has transformed a just war into a pointless war.” She was speaking after a video was released of her son. “My heart burns with longing. My whole heart is scorched because of my Matan. Matan, I, an entire nation, we are doing everything we can for you, for all the hostages,” she said. The protests came a week after Israel’s war cabinet voted to occupy Gaza City, the territory’s largest city, and displace its population, in a move condemned by the UN Security Council. Thousands of residents have since fled Gaza City’s southern Zeitoun neighbourhood, where days of continuous Israeli bombardment have created a “catastrophic” situation, the city’s Hamas-run municipality told the BBC.

Reuters Protesters filled main roads on the way to Hostages Square in Tel Aviv

At least 40 people were killed by Israeli attacks across the territory on Saturday, Gaza’s civil defence agency said. Hamas said in a statement that Israeli forces had been carrying out a “sustained offensive in the eastern and southern neighbourhoods of Gaza City, particularly in Zeitoun”. The Israeli military said it would begin allowing tents to be brought into Gaza by aid agencies again. “As part of the preparations to move the population from combat zones to the southern Gaza Strip for their protection, the supply of tents and shelter equipment to Gaza will resume,” the Israeli military body Cogat said.

Getty Images Protesters block a road in Tel Aviv

Bowen: Netanyahu is presiding over a divided Israel – the fault lines are now chasms

14 August 2025 Share Save Jeremy Bowen International Editor Share Save

BBC

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister and by far the dominant force in its politics, has not budged from what he believes is the essential truth about the war in Gaza. He has given Israel – and the outside world – a consistent message since Hamas attacked Israel almost two years ago. He stated it clearly when he ordered the first big ground offensive of the war into the Gaza Strip on 28 October 2023, three weeks after the attacks, and since then he has repeated the themes many times. “We will fight to defend our homeland. We will fight and not retreat. We will fight on land, at sea and in the air. We will destroy the enemy above ground and below ground. We will fight and we will win. “This will be a victory of good over evil, of light over darkness, of life over death. In this war we will stand steadfast, more united than ever, certain in the justice of our cause.” His speech adopted the cadences of Winston Churchill’s rallying call in June 1940 of “we shall fight on the beaches,” after Britain’s defeat by Germany in northern France and the evacuation of more than 338,000 allied soldiers from Dunkirk.

Walter Stonema n via Getty / ABIR SULTAN /AFP via Getty Netanyahu has returned to the same themes of light, darkness, good and evil many times since that speech, which adopted the cadences of Winston Churchill’s rallying call of 1940

Before Churchill told the British in his celebrated peroration that “we shall never surrender,” he had not spared them from the truth that they had suffered a “colossal military disaster”. Hamas inflicted Israel’s worst defeat in a single day on 7 October, and the horror that it could break open the borders, and kill and take so many hostages, is still very real in Israel. It is a big factor shaping attitudes to the war, the way it is being fought, and how it might end. Very few Israelis have ever doubted that their cause is just, but Netanyahu’s statement that they would be “more united than ever” could not have been further from the condition of Israel almost two years later. Israel is as divided now as at any time in its history, and Netanyahu, a deeply divisive figure when Hamas attacked, is presiding over fault lines in Israel that have opened into chasms.

Israeli views on the suffering in Gaza

On the edge of the anti-Netanyahu demonstration in Tel Aviv, several hundred Israelis stood silently, each holding a placard with the name of a Palestinian child killed by Israel in Gaza. Many of the signs had a photograph of a smiling girl or boy, next to the day they were born and the day they were killed. Children who did not have a photo were represented by a drawing of a flower. The silent demonstrations to stop the killing are getting bigger – some are held outside airbases, where they try to catch the eye of pilots arriving for bombing raids into Gaza – but the demonstrators still hold a minority view. Timina Peretz, one of the organisers, says they started after Israel broke the last ceasefire with Hamas on 18 March and went back to war. “We realised how many children died just in the same week. I refuse to stay silent while it’s happening, a genocide and starvation of people…

MOHAMMED SABER/EPA/Shutterstock Opinion polls suggest that a large majority of Jewish Israelis are not troubled by Palestinian suffering in Gaza

“On the street, we’re getting a lot of good reactions, like people saying, ‘thank you’. And we have many people cursing us and [getting] really offended and upset from these images.” I asked if they get called traitors. “Of course, they do a lot of them, they say that if we think the way we think, or we act the way we act, we should just go… to live in Gaza. “They can’t understand how the basic idea of criticising the state is something that is rooted in democracy.” Opinion polls taken since the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) went back to war in Gaza in March, breaking the last ceasefire, suggest that a large majority of Jewish Israelis are not troubled by Palestinian suffering in Gaza. A sample recorded in the last three days of July by the Israeli Democracy Institute says that 78% of Jewish Israelis, who make up four-fifths of the population, believe that given the restrictions of the fighting, Israel “is making substantial efforts to avoid causing unnecessary suffering to Palestinians in Gaza”. The pollsters also chose a more personal question, asking whether individuals were “troubled or not troubled by the reports of famine and suffering among the Palestinian population in Gaza?” Some 79% of Jewish Israelis surveyed said they were not troubled. Meanwhile 86% of those in Israel’s Palestinian Arab minority who were asked the same question said they were very or somewhat troubled.

REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun/Pool Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has said: ‘The only ones that are being starved in Gaza are our hostages’

Netanyahu, his ministers and spokespeople insist that Hamas, the United Nations, witnesses, aid workers and foreign governments are telling lies about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. In a news conference conducted in English for the international media on 10 August, Netanyahu condemned reports of starvation in Gaza. He wanted “to puncture the lies… the only ones that are being starved in Gaza are our hostages”. He has, for many years, equated criticism of Israel with antisemitism. Accounts of hunger, and IDF soldiers killing Palestinians struggling to find food that have been believed and condemned by Israel’s allies, including Britain, France and Germany, should he said be viewed in the context of the long history of the persecution of Jews in Europe. “We were said to be spreading vermin to Christian society, we were said to be poisoning the wells, we were said to slaughter Christian children for their blood. “And as these lies spread around the globe, they were followed by horrific, horrific massacres, pogroms, displacements, finally culminating the worst massacre of them all – the Holocaust. “Today the Jewish state is being maligned in a similar way.”

‘We are in a trauma time – hostages are dying’

Ms Peretz blames the Israeli media for not showing the suffering and deaths of Palestinians. That subject went closer to the heart of the national conversation when it was raised on a popular Saturday evening television talk show hosted by Eyal Berkovic, the former West Ham United football player. One of the regular guests was an Israeli journalist called Emmanuelle Elbaz-Phelps. They had been discussing, as they had previously, the suffering of the hostages and their families, and Israeli soldiers who had been killed fighting in Gaza. Then, she told me, she felt it was her duty as a journalist to mention something that was not often spoken about on Israeli TV.

REUTERS/Ammar Awad ‘Israelis are in pain… [Many are] begging the government to find a way and make a hostage deal,” says Ms Elbaz-Phelps

“I just [said] that the war is also killing a lot of Palestinians in Gaza, which is a very simple statement, no political point of view. There was no patience to listen to it.” Voices were raised. Eyal Berkovic has made a name for himself as a TV host by not holding back. Ms Elbaz-Phelps, who also works as a correspondent for French TV, recalled his response. “He said, I do not have to worry about the people in Gaza, they are my enemies. To which I responded, you can let me say that I worry about the horrific images coming out of there. “And he said, for sure, you can finish your point. This is very representative of the Israeli public opinion.”

She defended the work of Israeli journalists. “I think 95% of what the world knows about Israel’s government and decisions is brought by the Israeli journalists,” she argues. “But I think there is a huge difference when you talk about something and when you show something, and you will see images of Gaza from above that mainly are going to show the people how IDF is winning the war on the ground. “You don’t have human stories, you don’t have faces… because Israelis are in pain, and the stories also are happening inside of Israel.”

Leon Neal/Getty Images ‘The pain of the Israeli public [about] 7 October is not completely grasped outside of Israel,’ says one journalist

Ms Elbaz-Phelps believes the reason is that Israelis are still dealing with their trauma, after 7 October. “The word outside is covering Gaza and talking about the suffering of the population in Gaza. Which is right, but there is not, I think, acknowledgement of how much the Israeli people is living in a trauma. “We are not in a post-traumatic area. We are in a trauma time. Hostages are dying inside the tunnels of Hamas. [People are] begging the government to find a way and make a hostage deal. “Only when the hostages will come home, then maybe the healing can start. The pain of the Israeli public, how much they’re still on 7 October, is something that is not completely grasped outside of Israel.”

Too hard to cope with

Around 20 Israeli hostages are still believed to be alive in Gaza. Israelis of all political persuasions were horrified by recent videos posted by their captors showing two badly emaciated young men in tunnels under Gaza. Their fate is front and centre of the attitudes of most Israelis to the war.

The Hostages Families Forum Headquarters Hamas released the footage of Evyatar David, drawing strong condemnation from Israel and Western leaders. ‘He’s a human skeleton,’ his brother said.

I met the pollster Dahlia Scheindlin, who has often criticised Netanyahu’s conduct of the war in her column in the liberal daily newspaper Haaretz, in “hostage square” next to Israel’s military headquarters in Tel Aviv. Since October 2023, this has been the centre of the hostage families’ campaign to get their people out of Gaza. “The reason why the majority of Israelis consistently support ending the war is to get the hostages back,” she says. Speaking about the lack of concern in Israel for the people in Gaza, she tells me: “It’s because a large portion of Israelis believe that the suffering has been exaggerated or even partly fabricated by Hamas.”

ABIR SULTAN/EPA/Shutterstock ‘The reason why the majority of Israelis consistently support ending the war is to get the hostages back,’ says pollster Dahlia Scheindlin

Israelis, she continues, are inclined to believe that the problem is the messaging. “Israelis have been obsessed with PR for a long time. They call it Hasbara. “That inclination to blame criticism of Israel on poor public communications has gone into overdrive during the war, and [is] on steroids [in] relation to the accusations of starvation. “The far-right wing calls it the campaign of fabrication. They think [even the way] the Israeli media is starting to cover it is amplifying Hamas’ narrative. “But I think mainstream Israelis are sort of suppressing it because it’s too hard for them to cope with. This is the kind of thing you hear people say in private conversation. “They are too consumed with the hostages or their own family members who are fighting in Gaza, and they just can’t handle the sense that Israel might be doing something wrong.”

‘It’s very easy to judge…’

Outside the secular Israeli mainstream of Tel Aviv and the cities on the Mediterranean coast, I have found few doubts about the justice of Israel’s conduct of the war. Deep in the occupied West Bank, down a dirt road, is a Jewish settlement called Esh Kodesh, which is part of a complex of small settlements. Just a generation ago these were a collection of caravans on hilltops, but they are now well established. Aaron Katzoff, a father of seven who is originally from Los Angeles, has created a winery and a bar called “Settlers,” which feels like a small piece of the American west. He labels his wine “liquid prophecy”.

Settlers Bar is popular with right-wing and religiously observant people, as well as the local community

It is a social centre, not just for his community but for an overwhelmingly right-wing and religiously observant clientele who make special journeys there. Many of the customers were armed when I visited. A soldier with a dusty uniform sat eating a burger and drinking red wine with his M-16 cradled on his lap. Others had left their assault weapons behind the bar. A woman had a 9mm pistol in a holster strapped on over her flowery dress. The young men at the corner table were, Aaron said, decompressing after a stint in Gaza. Aaron still does reserve duty as an IDF officer and has fought in Gaza. He has no doubts about the justice of Israel’s actions. “Come down to a tunnel in Gaza,” he told me. “See what it means not to have oxygen and in the humidity and heat try to fight terrorists that are hiding behind women and children and shoot at you… “It’s very easy to sit in an air conditioning room and judge people who do that, war is not easy.”

REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

What, I asked him, about ending the war now, as so many Israelis want. “Sometimes you can’t always get there now… You want everything to be Wonderland… but the world’s not like that. “Things take time, and it’s sad, but that’s reality.”

A ‘collapse of support’ before 7 October

In the months leading up to 7 October 2023, thousands of Israelis had been demonstrating in the streets against plans to change the judicial system in what they saw as an assault on democracy. “This has been an unpopular government since well before the war,” argues Ms Scheindlin. “Once the war began, by contrast to most other countries where you see a rallying of support for the government, there was a complete collapse of support.”

ABIR SULTAN/Pool via REUTERS Netanyahu says the war cannot end until there is total victory over Hamas

Enough of Netanyahu’s political base on Israel’s right wing accepts his insistence that the war cannot end until total victory over Hamas, for him to have rebuilt his poll ratings from rock bottom. But he is still trailing opposition parties. They have pointed to evidence that they say shows he is prolonging the war to stay in office. As a private citizen he would face a national inquiry into the security failures that gave Hamas its opening on 7 October 2023. His long running trial on corruption charges serious enough to carry a potential prison sentence would also accelerate from its current glacial pace. Ultranationalists in his coalition, the finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and the national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir have threatened to topple his government if he makes any kind of deal with Hamas.

Hostages and Missing Families Forum Hostage’s families have appealed to Netanyahu to do a deal with Hamas

They want not just the defeat of Hamas, but the annexation of Gaza, the removal of Palestinians and their replacement by Jewish settlers. The families of the hostages, meanwhile, have appealed to Netanyahu to do a deal with Hamas before the men still being held die. But the prime minister, doubling down on his theme of a fight until total victory, announced a new offensive that has appalled many hostage families and been condemned by many of Israel’s allies. Netanyahu’s plans were also opposed by the current leadership of the IDF. Its chief of staff General Eyal Zamir made it known that he opposes the Netanyahu plan for a new offensive in Gaza, reportedly telling the cabinet that it would endanger the hostages and worsen the humanitarian crisis.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF)/Anadolu via Getty Images General Eyal Zamir made it known that he opposes the Netanyahu plan for a new offensive in Gaza

Zamir was appointed in March when his predecessor resigned after falling out with the prime minister over the conduct of the war. Now the Israeli media is speculating that Netanyahu will force Zamir to resign. One report says Zamir is convinced he’s been “marked for dismissal” for challenging Netanyahu’s plan.

‘This is like a miracle period’

The war has also widened Israel’s most bitter division, between the secular population and the religious right. Shuttling between demonstrations by secular Israelis in Tel Aviv and their religious fellow citizens in Jerusalem can feel like commuting between two different countries. War is always painful. But for some in Israel’s hardline religious nationalist right wing, it is also an opportunity, even a time of miracles that heralds the coming of the messiah. Orit Strock, a minister from Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party, said last summer that the war had turned events in their direction. “From my point of view, this is like a miracle period,” she said. Some see an opening granted by God to transform Israel into a state ruled by the Torah, the law of God as revealed to Moses and laid out in the five books of the Hebrew scriptures.

SAID KHATIB/AFP via Getty Images ‘War is always painful. But for some in Israel’s hardline religious nationalist right wing, it is also an opportunity.’ (Pictured: Palestinians climb on an Israeli tank on 7 October)

War also can speed up their desire to change the map. They believe God gave all the land between the Mediterranean and the River Jordan to the Jews. No space can be allowed for the shrinking number of Palestinians who still believe it might be possible to make peace with Israel by creating an independent state in Gaza and the West Bank, with a capital in east Jerusalem. Smotrich has said the Jewish state should be on both sides of the river Jordan, taking in Jordan and stretching up to Damascus, the Syrian capital. Extending religious law is not government policy, nor is expanding Israel’s borders across the River Jordan. But blocking a Palestinian state is a cornerstone of the Netanyahu coalition. And the coalition can only stay in government as long as Smotrich and Ben-Gvir agree to support it. That gives them a disproportionate influence over the prime minister.

Amir Levy/Getty Images Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich laid out his vision for Gaza and the West Bank earlier this year

On 6 May Smotrich laid out his vision for Gaza and the West Bank, which Palestinians want for a state. Most western governments, including the United Kingdom, see Palestinian statehood alongside Israel as the only way to escape a conflict that has lasted more than a century for control of the land Arabs and Jews both want. Instead, Smotrich said that within six months Gaza’s population would be confined to a narrow piece of land. The rest of the territory would be “totally destroyed” and “empty”. Palestinians in Gaza would be “totally despairing, understanding that there is no hope and nothing to look for in Gaza, and will be looking for relocation to begin a new life in other places”.

Tension in the old city

In the occupied old city of Jerusalem on Sunday 3 August, many Palestinians shut shops and businesses and stayed off the streets as Israeli Jews marked Tisha B’Av. It is a day of mourning for the destruction by the Babylonians of Jerusalem’s first Jewish Temple and of its second one by the Romans. The area where the Temples stood later became the third holiest place for Muslims, now dominated by al-Aqsa mosque where Muslims believe the prophet Muhammad ended his night journey from Mecca, and the golden rotunda of the Dome of the Rock where he ascended to heaven.

Getty Images Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem is an important religious site for Muslims

To try to keep the peace in an area that is a religious and national symbol for Israelis and Palestinians, a set of laws and customs, known as the status quo, is supposed to be observed. One rule bans Jewish prayer within al-Aqsa compound, known by Palestinians as the Noble Sanctuary. It has been flouted in recent years with the encouragement of Ben-Gvir. On Tisha B’Av he went there himself to lead prayers, an action that in the fragile and tense holy city was seen by some as a provocative political move. Dozens of his followers – and heavily armed police that he commands as national security minister – followed as he strode through the narrow street of the Old City, through the gates of the place Israelis call the Temple Mount.

Amir Levy/Getty Images Ben Gvir has said: ‘We should… announce sovereignty of the whole of Gaza Strip’

As well as praying, he made a speech linking his presence and prayers in Jerusalem to the war in Gaza and the way he wants to change Israel. The videos of the two starving Israeli hostages were, he said, an attempt to put the state of Israel under pressure, which had to be resisted. “From Temple Mount – the place where we proved that sovereignty and governance can be done – from here of all places we should send a message and make sure that today itself we conquer the whole of Gaza Strip, announce sovereignty of the whole of Gaza Strip, take down every Hamas man and encourage voluntary emigration. “Only this way will we return the hostages and win the war.”

‘We want our house back’

After Ben-Gvir had left, a big crowd of his young religious supporters stayed on to pray in a long, covered arcade. The sound of their prayers echoed off the vaulted stone roof. Two young women, Ateret and Tamar, sad about the religious commemoration but seemingly excited by the future, explained why they believed the Temple Mount was the heart of Judaism. Ateret said the destruction of the Temples meant, “it’s like having a body, but your heart is not there. “We just want to say that we want our hostages back. We want everybody to have peace. This is the heart of the whole world, not only our hearts. When God will be here the world will have peace.” They explained they prayed every day for the construction of a third Temple on the site. “This is our house for thousands of years, and now we’re back here, we want our house.” When I asked what would happen to the Muslim holy places that stand there now, they said they didn’t know. Ateret and Tamar seemed to be gentle souls, suffused with religious fervour. According to senior diplomatic sources, the nightmare for security services in both Israel and its Arab neighbours is that a violent Jewish extremist might try to damage al-Aqsa mosque to bring on the third temple, an act that would risk igniting the region.

‘We are torn from inside’

On the other end of the political spectrum is Avrum Burg, a writer and strong critic of Netanyahu, who used to be one of Israel’s most prominent centre-left politicians. He was speaker of the Knesset, the parliament, from 1999 to 2003 and before that he chaired the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organisation, two venerable Zionist institutions. Today, he is among those who do not see the war as a miraculous chance to transform the country. Israelis, Mr Burg reflects, are “somewhere between religious excitement and psychological despair”. There is no middle ground, he argues. “A few Israelis, a majority of government, believe that we’re living in a miraculous time. It’s an opportunity. It’s God given. It is a once in a lifetime opening in order to realign, reorganise, re-something with history. “And so many Israelis feel and sense – what for? What does that mean? Why do I have to pay the price? It’s a meaningless war. In between, there is no Israel. Israel is a fragmented, broken, torn apart social fabric.”

‘Many Israelis feel and sense – what for? What does that mean? Why do I have to pay the price? It’s a meaningless war,’ says Avrum Burg

That psychological despair – and anger – at Israel’s government can be found at the regular demonstrations calling for Netanyahu’s resignation. At one, on a hot and humid night in Tel Aviv, secular opponents of the government waved the blue and white Star of David flag, chanted and banged drums until they stood silent for the national anthem. After, they listened to speeches from retired veteran commanders of the army and the police demanding a ceasefire. Backstage, Nava Rosalio, the organiser of many mass rallies against the Netanyahu government, spelled out their position. “We wish to replace Netanyahu’s government, but specifically to bring back all hostages in a deal at once, ending Netanyahu’s war in Gaza, which at this point has become completely political and serving nothing but his own political survival, of Netanyahu and his partners.”

JACQUELYN MARTIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images There have been demonstrations calling for Netanyahu’s resignation

I suggested some might accuse her of repeating the Hamas position. (For more than a year Hamas negotiators have offered to return all the hostages if the IDF pulled out of Gaza and the US and others guaranteed that the Israel would not go back to war once it had its people back. Israel, however, insists that Hamas must be fully disarmed, play no future role in Gaza and that Israel would retain security control in Gaza with the freedom to decide what comes next.) But Ms Rosalio dismissed the suggestion that a ceasefire deal could be any kind of a win for Hamas. “That’s for propaganda. We have a great army… which can stay outside of the Gaza Strip and just protect the border. “There is no reason to stay either, unless they imagine or wish to conquer Gaza and to transfer the people of Gaza. “We just don’t believe the excuse of we’re protecting you, the people of Israel. If you wish to protect us, you would have ended this war to allow the people of Israel to rehabilitate, for society to recover. “We are torn from inside.”

In God’s hands

In the last three weeks I have travelled between the two sides of Israel, from leftists in Tel Aviv silently protesting the killing of Palestinian children, displaying the “psychological despair” described by Avrum Burg, the former speaker of parliament. But on the other side of Israel, I have witnessed an overwhelming sense that Israel should ignore the mounting pressure and condemnation by some of its allies as well as its enemies, a feeling that its actions are justified by everything Hamas did on 7 October and the continued imprisonment of Israeli hostages in brutal conditions in tunnels.

REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa Jeremy Bowen travelled between the two sides of Israel – on one side, leftists in Tel Aviv silently protesting the killing of Palestinian children and suffering there

Israel’s prime minister, still backed in public by US President Donald Trump despite murmurings that he is becoming exasperated by Netanyahu’s refusal to make a hostage deal possible, is planning another offensive and accuses Israel’s allies of deep seated antisemitism. Messianic religious Zionists who support him believe God is with them and granting miracles. Deep in the West Bank, overlooking the Jordan Valley, Aaron Katzoff and his friends in the Settlers wine bar believe they are fulfilling the prophecies of the scriptures, as they drink wine from grapes he says proudly were grown using the methods of Biblical times. His relaxed and happy customers believe the secular liberals protesting against Netanyahu in Tel Aviv are yesterday’s Israelis. Now, the future of their state is in their hands, and in God’s – and they are confident it will all end well. Lead image: AFP via Getty Images

Thousands throng Jerusalem to press Netanyahu to make hostage release deal

5 hours ago Share Save Wyre Davies BBC News, in Jerusalem Share Save

EPA Protests led by hostages’ families have intensified recently

More than 15,000 people have taken to the streets in Israel to call for an end to the war in Gaza and urge Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a deal to free the remaining hostages. Families and supporters of the hostages still being held by Hamas thronged Jerusalem’s Paris Square, with others gathering in Tel Aviv. Of the 48 hostages still being held in Gaza, as many as 20 are believed to be alive. Israel has yet to formally respond to a deal that would see the release of some hostages, but has previously demanded the return of all the hostages in any agreement. Netanyahu insists total victory over Hamas will bring the hostages home.

Hamas took 251 hostages back to Gaza after its attack in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which some 1,200 people died. Israel launched a massive retaliation campaign to destroy Hamas which has resulted in the death of at least 64,368 Palestinians, according to figures from the Hamas-run health ministry. The UN considers the figures reliable, although Israel disputes them. Voices of protest on Israeli streets and international demands from some of its allies to stop the military offensive in Gaza have been growing steadily. Yet all the signs are that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are preparing to intensify the war, as the Netanyahu government vows to gain full control of the Gaza Strip and finally defeat Hamas.

EPA/shutterstock

On Saturday night, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem saw some of the biggest protests in recent months calling for the release of remaining hostages and an end to the war. Within earshot of Netanyahu’s residence in the city, speaker after speaker called for him to strike a deal with Hamas that would see the safe return of their loved ones, almost two years after their abduction. Among the many family members with angry messages for Netanyahu was the mother of Matan Angrest, an IDF soldier being held in Gaza. “This is not a threat, Mr Prime Minister. If something happens, you will pay for it -this is a mother’s word,” shouted Anat Angrest, the Times of Israel reported. Many protesters say the expansion of the war will further endanger the hostages’ lives.

If Netanyahu was in his nearby Jerusalem home, the appeals from parents and supporters appear to be falling on deaf ears. Israel’s beleaguered but resolute prime minister has shown no sign of ending the war, even though many former military leaders have repeatedly said the IDF has probably achieved as much as it can militarily in Gaza, without further endangering the lives of hostages and exacerbating the desperate humanitarian crisis there. That is a view, reportedly, also held by many serving army generals but they are now being asked by their government to prepare for a huge land incursion to overrun Gaza City and the rest of the war-damaged Palestinian enclave. Netanyahu’s Defence Minister Israel Katz has repeatedly taken to social media in recent days, posting videos of high-rise buildings in Gaza City being blown-up with the blunt message that this was just the start. Israel justifies the destruction of Gaza’s most prominent buildings saying they are used by Hamas as “command and control centres”. That was continued on Sunday, when the IDF issued an evacuation order before destroying a third high-rise building in as many days in Gaza City. Israel accused Hamas of setting up “intelligence-gathering equipment” in the tower. Previously, Hamas has denied using high-rise buildings, where Palestinians say displaced people were sheltering. Despite near-daily bombardment, Israel denies accusations of implementing a “scorched-earth” policy – the systematic destruction of public buildings and homes to make Gaza practically uninhabitable. Katz had earlier threatened to “open the gates of hell” as Israel warned Gaza City’s residents to leave for the so-called “humanitarian enclave” of al-Mawasi, further south. But nowhere in Gaza can realistically be described as “safe” and al-Mawasi has itself been repeatedly targeted by Israeli air strikes in which dozens of people have been killed – many, including several children, in the past week.

US ambassador to Israel says recognition of Palestinian state is disastrous

It is against this backdrop that many of Israel’s allies have repeatedly called for an end to the fighting in Gaza and an urgent return to ceasefire negotiations. “We are extremely concerned about the humanitarian disaster in Gaza and that’s why we repeat our calls for Israel to stop the military offensive,” said Denmark’s Foreign Minister, Lars Rasmussen, on a visit to Jerusalem on Sunday. That message was politely ignored by his Israeli counterpart, Gideon Sa’ar, who not so subtly warned that the intention of some European nations to recognise soon Palestinian statehood would be counterproductive and could have dire consequences. Asked by a reporter where the Netanyahu government stood on highly controversial proposals to annex the Occupied Palestinian West Bank, Sa’ar said: “We’ve had discussions on this issue with the prime minister and there will be a decision. I don’t have to elaborate.” The foreign minister also said he had recently spoken to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio about the matter, amid other reports citing US officials, including Mike Huckabee – the high-profile ambassador to Israel – who indicated that the Trump administration would not “tell Israel what to do” if it chose to declare sovereignty over much of the West Bank. If that did happen, tensions in an already divided region would move up a notch or two.

‘The mood is changing’: Israeli anger grows at conduct of war

21 May 2025 Share Save Tom Bennett BBC News, Jerusalem Share Save

Getty Images Anti-war protesters have started carrying photos of Palestinian children killed by Israeli bombs in Gaza

As Israel’s war in Gaza enters a new, violent phase, a growing number of voices within the country are speaking out against it – and how it’s being fought. Yair Golan, a left-wing politician and former deputy commander of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), sparked outrage on Monday when he said: “Israel is on the way to becoming a pariah state, like South Africa was, if we don’t return to acting like a sane country. “A sane state does not wage war against civilians, does not kill babies as a hobby, and does not set itself the goal of depopulating the population,” he told Israeli public radio’s popular morning news programme. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hit back, describing the comments as “blood libel”. But on Wednesday, a former Israeli minister of defence and IDF chief of staff – Moshe “Bogi” Ya’alon – went further. “This is not a ‘hobby’,” he wrote in a post on X, “but a government policy, whose ultimate goal is to hold on to power. And it is leading us to destruction.” Just 19 months ago, when Hamas gunmen crossed the fence into Israel and killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, taking 251 others back to Gaza as hostages – statements like these seemed almost unthinkable.

But now Gaza is in ruins, Israel has launched a new military offensive, and, though it has also agreed to lift its 11-week blockade on the territory, just a trickle of aid has so far entered. Recent polling by Israel’s Channel 12 found that 61% of Israelis want to end the war and see the hostages returned. Just 25% support expanding the fighting and occupying Gaza. The Israeli government insists it will destroy Hamas and rescue the remaining hostages. Netanyahu says he can achieve “total victory” – and he maintains a strong core of supporters. But the mood among others in Israeli society “is one of despair, trauma, and a lack of a sense of ability to change anything”, says former Israeli hostage negotiator Gershon Baskin.

Getty Images Protesters have continued demanding a ceasefire and a return of Israeli hostages

“The overwhelming majority of all the hostage families think that the war has to end, and there has to be an agreement,” he adds. “A small minority think that the primary goal of finishing off Hamas is what has to be done, and then the hostages will be freed”.

On Sunday, around 500 protesters, many wearing T-shirts with the inscription “Stop the horrors in Gaza” and carrying pictures of babies killed by Israeli air strikes, attempted to march from the town of Sderot to the Gaza border, in protest at Israel’s new offensive. They were led by Standing Together – a small but growing anti-war group of Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel. After attempting to block a road, the leader of the group Alon-Lee Green was arrested, along with eight others. From house arrest, Mr Green told the BBC: “I think it’s obvious that you can see an awakening within the Israeli public. You can see that more and more people are taking a position.” Another Standing Together activist, Uri Weltmann, said he thinks there’s a growing belief that continuing the war is “not only harmful to the Palestinian civilian population, but also risks the lives of hostages, risks the lives of soldiers, risks the lives of all of us”.

Getty Images Gaza’s “whole population is on the brink of starvation,” according to the United Nations (UN) World Food Programme