Twenty four hours after the IDF’s live-streamed double-bombing of Gaza’s Nasser hospital, which killed at least 21 people including health and rescue workers and five journalists, anti-war protests in the streets of Tel Aviv blocked major roads in demand of a Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal.
Habiba Square in Tel Aviv had already seen thousands protest at the weekend in a call for a peace deal. Demonstrators accused the Israeli government of failing them, describing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to conquer Gaza while there was a ceasefire deal on the table still awaiting his response as a “stab in the heart of the [hostage] families and the entire nation”.
The actions on Tuesday (26 August) were led by hostage families and soon spread into protests across the country, including outside the home of Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar, who was at the same time in America accusing Western “left-wing” governments of trying to impose a “political siege” on Israel by backing a Palestinian state, during a speech in New York to American Jewish organisations.
Writing about the popular opposition in the Guardian, Israeli MP Ofer Cassif, a member of the left Hadash party, revealed the extent to which opposition to Netanyahu’s starvation campaign and his new assault on Gaza City is growing – along with support for military ‘refusers’.
“Since the cabinet resolution to reoccupy Gaza City, the Israeli military has issued 60,000 new recruitment warrants for reserve service. When the warrants come into effect in early September, the reserve forces will be at their highest level since the outbreak of the war – 130,000. But the military is not the only thing increasing in size. So, too, is the refusal movement.”: Ofer Cassif
Dissent is undoubtedly building in Israel’s military as increasing numbers of reservists refuse to fight and veterans launch open letters condemning the war in Gaza. This isn’t a new phenomenon, a response to the latest reservist call-up. +972 magazine reported back in April: “Over 100,000 Israelis have reportedly stopped showing up for reserve duty. While their reasons differ, the scale demonstrates the war’s waning legitimacy.”
The New Arab also wrote of the attendance rate of soldiers as up to 50 percent or lower – and that was before this latest Gaza onslaught. It said that, according to Restart Israel, a movement advocating for a democratic Israel, “nearly 12,000 reservists have refused over the course of the war”.
Cassif says that more and more Israelis are realising that participating in military service is to be complicit with the government’s war crimes. Reasons vary – from resisting the genocide, moral objections to participating in war crimes, political opposition to the occupation at large and concern that military action endangers the hostages, to disapproval of the ultra-Orthodox community’s exemption from service.
“The movement is not homogenous – either in age and social grouping, or in motive or ideology. Some conscientious objectors, like the teenagers of Mesarvot, go public with their refusal to be part of the war machine. They are treated with extreme severity and often subjected to cycles of imprisonment in military jail. I have personally conducted regulatory visits at such facilities, meeting these brave people who have come to be known as ‘soldiers of peace’.
“Others are less willing to publicise their stance, but privately refuse to serve. The data on the exact number of “grey refusers” is treated as a top intelligence secret and is not shared by the military, but Yesh Gvul, an organisation that assists those called up to obtain draft exemptions, says their number is constantly increasing.”
The Knesset (MK) member, who has been repeatedly suspended and removed from parliament for his public comments condemning the IDF for committing genocide in Gaza, and will be suspended again from committee and plenary sessions for two months when the MK resumes sitting in October, is the only Israeli MP to support South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
Cassif’s suspensions could be considered mild punishment for a politician who was imprisoned four times during the First Intifada for refusing to serve in the occupied territories.
He also used his Guardian article to call on Keir Starmer to acknowledge Netanyahu as the international war criminal and to point the finger of blame for the “wholly preventable man-made catastrophe” of the famine in Gaza at David Lammy.
“It seems that Netanyahu manages to fool western leaders time and time again. On Friday, in response to the IPC declaration of famine, the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, said it was an ‘utterly horrifying and wholly preventable man-made catastrophe’. May I ask Lammy and the rest of the British cabinet – are you among the people responsible for this catastrophe?
“In July, the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, announced a conditional plan to recognise a Palestinian state if Israel did not change course. Starving people who are under constant threat of bombardment do not enjoy the same patience as suited officials in marble offices. They plead for food, water and air while politicians debate conditions and timing.
“Starmer must immediately recognise Palestine unconditionally, but he must recognise much more than that. He must acknowledge Netanyahu as the international war criminal that he is. He must support new sanctions to tackle the settler movement, including ministers such as Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. He must recognise that Netanyahu and his government are the main obstacle to releasing the hostages. He must recognise the people of Gaza as victims of a continuing genocide, and act accordingly. Or he will remain complicit in this devastating, human-made catastrophe.”