Israelis begin to question morality of war in Gaza amid widespread starvation claims
The news on Israel's main TV channel had just finished a segment on howhunger in Gaza is portrayed around the world, when the anchor looked up and said: 'Maybe it's finally time to acknowledge that this isn't a public relations failure, but a moral one.'
Whether or not it was a Walter Cronkite moment, as when the US broadcaster declared on live TV in 1968 that the Vietnam War was unwinnable – a turning point in public opinion – it seemed significant in a country that's been steadfast in its defense of the war against Hamas in Gaza for 22 months.
There are other indications – from WhatsApp group chats to new reports by Israeli human rights organizations – that the mood is shifting away from a robust embrace of the conflict.
Some commentators are announcing a change of heart about the war, triggered when Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and abducting 250. The subsequent Israeli offensive has killed nearly 60,000 people, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, and left much of the Palestinian territory in ruins.
The United Nations World Food Program has warned for weeks that Gaza's population of more than two million people faces crisis levels of food insecurity, with scores of aid groups reporting widespread starvation.
'After the massacre, it was imperative to strike at Hamas with all our might, even at the cost of civilian casualties,' wrote Nahum Barnea, a columnist for centrist newspaper Yediot Aharonot. But 'the damage – in military casualties, Israel's international standing, and civilian casualties – is growing worse. Hamas is to blame, but Israel is responsible.'
Sherwin Pomerantz, who runs an economic consulting group, wrote in The Jerusalem Post: 'What was a just war two years ago is now an unjust war and must be ended.'
Shifting sentiments in Israeli society
The shift in Israeli sentiment is reflected in a pileup of bad news: Hamas still holds hostages in Gaza and remains a military force, soldiers continue to die, Israelis abroad are shunned, even attacked, and now scenes of starving children are shown across global media.
US President Donald Trump, a fervent defender of Israel, even weighed in, saying this week he didn't agree with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's assertion there is no starvation in Gaza. 'That's real starvation stuff, I see it, and you can't fake that,' Trump said in Scotland on Monday.
There haven't been any recent polls published in Israel related to the war. One in May showed 65% of Israelis unconcerned about humanitarian conditions in Gaza. But until this past week, little of the destruction and death there appeared in Israeli media. Now the issue of hunger dominates news coverage.
Other shifts in public discourse are noticeable. Human rights lawyers abroad have been accusing Israel of war crimes and genocidal intent in Gaza since just after the war started – charges the vast majority of Israelis have rejected. For the first time, two Israeli human rights groups are now using the term 'genocide' for what's happening – B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel.
ALSO ON Monday, the presidents of five Israeli universities wrote an open letter to Netanyahu urging him to 'intensify efforts to address the severe hunger crisis currently afflicting the Gaza Strip.
'Like many Israelis, we are horrified by the scenes from Gaza, including infants dying every day from hunger and disease,' they wrote. 'As a people who endured the horrors of the Holocaust, we also bear a responsibility to use every means at our disposal to prevent cruel and indiscriminate harm to innocent men, women and children.'
Yair Lapid, head of Israel's main opposition party, gave a fiery speech this week describing the war as a disaster and a failure and calling on Netanyahu to end it and eliminate Hamas through cooperation with regional powers.
After ceasefire talks stalled again last week, a new effort is under way to revive negotiations with Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the US and others. There's growing commentary in mainstream media declaring Hamas defeated, making an end to the war easier to accept. There's also pushback to the starvation narrative.
Israeli military authorities said, without additional evidence, that one photo of a skeletal boy published on front pages around the world was of a child with a genetic disease that makes his bones protrude, and that he'd been evacuated from Gaza more than a month ago. In addition, the military has distributed photos purported to be of Hamas operatives surrounded by food and looking healthy.
And, so far, Netanyahu has shown no sign of shifting policy.
'We are fighting a just war, a moral war, a war for our survival,' he said in a statement on Monday. 'No country in the world would allow the continued rule in a neighboring territory of a terror group bent on its destruction that already stormed across its borders in a genocidal attack.
'We'll continue to act responsibly, as we always have, and we'll continue to seek the return of our hostages and the defeat of Hamas,' he said. 'That is the only way to secure peace for Israelis and Palestinians alike.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
6 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump plans to meet Putin next week in Ukraine peace bid
President Donald Trump said Wednesday he plans to meet with Vladimir Putin as soon as next week in a fresh bid to broker a peace deal with Ukraine after U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff held a 'highly productive' meeting with the Russian president. Trump hailed the meeting as having made 'great progress,' but he didn't elaborate. A Kremlin spokesman said the meeting lasted three hours and was 'useful and constructive.' 'Everyone agrees this war must come to a close, and we will work towards that in the days and weeks to come,' Trump posted on his social media site. 'President Trump wants this brutal war to end,' added White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. Trump told European allies about his plans to meet with Putin and his hopes to broker a three-man meeting between the two of them and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, several American and European media outlets reported. A face-to-face meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy could amount to a crucial crossroads in the war that Putin launched against neighboring Ukraine more than three years ago. In announcing his plans, Trump didn't mention his looming Friday deadline for Putin to start talking peace with Kyiv, raising obvious questions about whether the threat is still hanging over the Kremlin. Trump last week set a stricter deadline of '10 or 12 days' for Putin to wind down the war against Ukraine or start peace negotiations, threatening 'severe tariffs' and other economic penalties against Russia and its economic partners if it refuses. Zelenskyy, who also spoke with Trump on Wednesday, said Putin's agreement to meet could suggest that pressure from Trump is working, though he warned that the wily Kremlin leader could be raising hopes for peace as a negotiating tactic without any intention of agreeing to end the conflict. 'The main thing is that they do not deceive us in the details,' Zelenskyy said in his nightly address to the Ukrainian people. Moscow had so far shrugged off Trump's deadline as empty bluster, noting he has given numerous previous ultimatums on various issues that turned out to be toothless threats. Russia believes it has the upper hand on the battlefield, at least in the short and medium term, giving it little reason to agree to even a brief ceasefire. Its troops have made modest advances along the long front line in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region and ousted Ukrainian troops from a sliver of a Russian border territory that they had previously seized. Russia has also increasingly mounted deadly missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian civilian targets. Earlier on Wednesday, Witkoff took a morning stroll in Moscow with Kirill Dmitriev, the Russian president's envoy for investment and economic cooperation, which was captured in footage aired by a Russian news agency. Dmitriev played a key role in three rounds of direct talks between delegations from Russia and Ukraine, as well as discussions between Russian and U.S. officials, but the negotiations made no progress on ending the three-year war. Trump has recently flip-flopped to a much harsher stance on Russia after seeing Putin for months spurn his demands for concessions. Still, Trump has shown himself to be unwilling to take a firm stance of defending Ukraine and sticking to it, giving Putin an incentive to wait out any threats. The new deadline and threat to impose 'secondary sanctions' on nations that buy Russian energy, like India, China and Turkey, are particularly problematic because those economic powerhouses have no control over Russia's stance on Ukraine. They're unlikely to cut economic ties with Moscow in response to such U.S. demands, especially when Trump himself was cozying up to Putin just a few weeks ago. The White House announced it is tacking on a new 25% tariff on products imported from India, raising the total tax to 50%, which suggests it doesn't consider Putin has met the deadline.
New York Times
8 minutes ago
- New York Times
On the Hunt for Spies, Iran Executes a Nuclear Scientist
Iran executed one of its nuclear scientists on Wednesday over allegations that he was a spy for Israel and had facilitated Israel's assassination of another nuclear scientist during the two countries' war in June, according to the judiciary's news outlet, Mizan. The judiciary said the scientist, Roozbeh Vadi, had worked at one of the country's most sensitive and important nuclear sites and had access to the type of classified information sought by Iran's enemies. Mr. Vadi was executed by hanging after he was found guilty of espionage and providing information to Israel, the judiciary said. The execution follows a 12-day war with Israel and the United States in June, when Israel assassinated at least 30 Iranian senior military commanders and 11 nuclear scientists. Iranian officials have acknowledged publicly that Israel's widespread infiltration of its security and intelligence apparatuses enabled Israel to eliminate key parts of Iran's military chain of command in the war's first night and helped it launch drone attacks from inside Iran. Following the war, officials have blamed Israel for a series of explosions and fires around the country. While the two countries have been locked in a long-running shadow war, the apparent accuracy of Israel's information and its launching attacks inside the country has rattled Iranian officials. Since the war ended, authorities have swept up hundreds of people, including activists and dissidents, on suspicions of spying and threatening national security, Iranian media reports and rights groups say. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
36 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Lebanon's Hezbollah rejects cabinet decision to disarm it
Hezbollah said Wednesday that it would treat a Lebanese government decision to disarm the militant group "as if it did not exist", accusing the cabinet of committing a "grave sin". Amid heavy US pressure and fears Israel could expand its strikes on Lebanon, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said Tuesday that the government had tasked the army with developing a plan to restrict weapons to government forces by year end. The plan is to be presented to the government by the end of August for discussion and approval, and another cabinet meeting is scheduled for Thursday to continue the talks, including on a US-proposed timetable for disarmament. Hezbollah said the government had "committed a grave sin by taking the decision to disarm Lebanon of its weapons to resist the Israeli enemy". The decision is unprecedented since Lebanon's civil war factions gave up their weapons three and a half decades ago. "This decision undermines Lebanon's sovereignty and gives Israel a free hand to tamper with its security, geography, politics and future existence... Therefore, we will treat this decision as if it does not exist," the Iran-backed group said in a statement. - 'Serves Israel's interests' - The government said its decision came as part of implementing a November ceasefire that sought to end more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, which culminated in two months of full-blown war. Hezbollah said it viewed the government's move as "the result of dictates from US envoy" Tom Barrack. It "fully serves Israel's interests and leaves Lebanon exposed to the Israeli enemy without any deterrence", the group said. Hezbollah was the only faction that kept its weapons after Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war. It emerged weakened politically and militarily from its latest conflict with Israel, its arsenal pummelled and its senior leadership decimated. Israel has kept up its strikes on Hezbollah and other targets despite the November truce, and has threatened to keep doing so until the group has been disarmed. An Israeli strike on the southern town of Tulin on Wednesday killed one person and wounded another, the health ministry said. Israel also launched a series of air strikes on southern Lebanon, wounding at least two people according to the health ministry. The Israeli military said it struck "weapons storage facilities, a missile launcher and Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure which stored engineering tools that allowed for the re-establishment of terrorist infrastructure in the area". Hezbollah said Israel must halt the attacks before any domestic debate about its weapons and a new defence strategy could begin. - 'Pivotal moment' - "We are open to dialogue, ending the Israeli aggression against Lebanon, liberating its land, releasing prisoners, working to build the state, and rebuilding what was destroyed by the brutal aggression," the group said. Hezbollah is "prepared to discuss a national security strategy", but not under Israeli fire, it added. Two ministers affiliated with Hezbollah and its ally the Amal movement walked out of Tuesday's meeting. Hezbollah described the walkout as "an expression of rejection" of the government's "decision to subject Lebanon to American tutelage and Israeli occupation". The Amal movement, headed by parliament speaker Nabih Berri, accused the government of "rushing to offer more gratuitous concessions" to Israel when it should have sought to end the ongoing attacks. It called Thursday's cabinet meeting "an opportunity for correction". Hezbollah opponent the Lebanese Forces, one of the country's two main Christian parties, said the cabinet's decision to disarm the militant group was "a pivotal moment in Lebanon's modern history -- a long-overdue step toward restoring full state authority and sovereignty". The Free Patriotic Movement, the other major Christian party and a former ally of Hezbollah, said it was in favour of the army receiving the group's weapons "to strengthen Lebanon's defensive power". Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a televised interview that any decision on disarmament "will ultimately rest with Hezbollah itself". "We support it from afar, but we do not intervene in its decisions," he added, noting that the group had "rebuilt itself" following setbacks during its war with Israel. lar/lg-nad/js
