What Israelis really think of what's going on in Gaza

BBC News

a day ago

In the 20 months since the war in Gaza began, Amit Halevy has been spat at, screamed at, and pelted with rocks and eggs in Israel's streets, all because she was calling for peace."We would sit in silence, just a bunch of women dressed in white, holding signs in Hebrew, Arabic and English saying: 'compassion', 'peace', 'nutritional security'," she told me."We thought: who argues with peace? But these demonstrations would get the same hatred as when we called to Stop the Occupation or Free Gaza. One guy screamed at us during a peace sit-in in Tel Aviv that he wished we would all be raped in Gaza, while we sat in silence holding signs saying 'love'".I first met Amit in the early months of the war. The grandchild of Holocaust survivors, she described to me then how family discussions about what was happening in Gaza left her feeling angry and frustrated. She is convinced that Israel's actions amounted to "Nazification".Now, she says, something in her family is shifting."With my father, I can say things that he couldn't hear before, and it sinks in," she said. "He'll say 'but what about Hamas?' And I say, 'Dad, if 80 kids were killed last night, it doesn't matter – as a human, and specifically as a Jew, you must say this has to stop right now'. And he understands."
The number of people in Israel concerned about Gazan suffering has been slowly increasing, but Amit and her friends are still part of a small minority.The Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) asked Israelis last month whether the suffering of Gazan civilians should be a factor in their government's decisions on the war. The majority - 67% - said Israel should either ignore it or consider it to a "fairly small extent". Among Jewish Israelis, that rose to more than three-quarters.Many Israelis, disillusioned after more than a year and a half of fighting, do now want an end to the war – in most cases this is not primarily because of Gaza's suffering, but out of concern for the 54 Israeli hostages who are believed to remain in Hamas captivity (figures can vary), of whom 31 are believed to be dead.
'Wall of denial'
The war in Gaza began after Hamas attacked on Israel in October 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking around 251 others hostage.Since then, at least 54,607 Palestinians have been killed, according to the territory's Hamas-run ministry of health. The UN estimates that more than a quarter of them are children.After Israel broke the latest ceasefire in March, some of Amit's fellow activists have begun holding up posters of children killed and injured in Gaza during their silent demonstrations."We thought we would get a lot of mad, aggressive responses," said one of the organisers, Alma Beck. "But we were surprised when people asked us who these kids are, and what happened to them – genuinely curious and concerned."She believes that many Israelis are not exposed to the human stories of suffering in Gaza."The government and media do everything to shelter Israelis from what is happening in Gaza. There's a wall of denial that's very, very strong," she said."I think this was the first instance of humanising the numbers [of casualties] - giving them a face, giving them a story. And it's hard to look away."
The fear and anger that galvanised Israel after the Hamas attacks, papering over divisions and driving support for the military campaign, has given way to exhaustion as the conflict grinds on.Support for the conflict was already waning a year ago. Less than a third of Israelis supported fresh military action in Rafah, according to the IDI, while almost two-thirds supported a deal with Hamas.More recently, several polls carried out this year by well-respected organisations have found a majority in favour of a ceasefire deal – with the primary aim of releasing the hostages.
Growing disillusionment
Posters of the hostages and "Stop The War" slogans were dotted among the rainbow flags at Jerusalem's Pride March in June.Yitzchak Zitter, there with his boyfriend, is currently serving as a reserve soldier in the Israeli army, but thinks the war is no longer worth it."I don't think we're getting closer to any of the stated goals of the war," he said. "A year ago, stating these opinions openly was very unpopular, especially in the military. But today, people are tired of this war, we hate it, we're done. And if you bring in the hostages, it becomes a much more acceptable opinion."Returning the hostages held by Hamas is by far the biggest reason Israelis give for wanting to end the war. At the main weekly anti-war demonstrations here, Gazans barely figure at all."Empathy for the people who celebrated the massacres of October 7 is very low," Yitzchak says. "They voted for Hamas [in 2006] and haven't really done much to get rid of them since. If we saw mass protests in Gaza, we would have a different conversation."Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has continued to insist that his military campaign in Gaza is critical to releasing the remaining hostages. So far, eight living captives have been freed in rescue operations by Israeli forces, while more than 140 have been released through agreements with Hamas.
Netanyahu says the military pressure has helped push Hamas into those agreements. But many of those demonstrating outside his office in Jerusalem, or in Tel Aviv's Hostages Square, disagree."We can't bring them back like that," said one protestor, a developmental psychologist called Mayan Eliahu Ifhar. "It's a terrible mistake. The war is killing them."That feeling has been echoed by many hostage families, worried that their relatives will die in captivity as the war grinds on, or be killed in Israeli airstrikes.There is also growing disillusionment over whether Mr Netanyahu's other war goal is achievable: the total destruction of Hamas as a military and governing force.
'A political war'
After 20 months, exhaustion with the war has reached Israel's armed forces. This is Israel's longest war, and some reservists are on their third or fourth rotation. Some are now refusing to serve - a few because of ethical objections, but many more because of the strain on their health, finances and families.But demands to end the war - from the streets, in military recruitment offices, and even within his own security cabinet – have left Netanyahu unmoved.Part of the reason, says Prof Tamar Hermann from the IDI, is that the vast majority of those calling for an end to the war are people who say they would never vote for him.
"The majority [of Israelis] see the war as a political war," she said. "If you are for the government, then you are for the government, regardless of what they are doing. And if you are against the government, you are against everything they are doing. It's black and white. And the war has made that worse."
Fears of Hamas regrouping
To hear what Netanyahu's supporters thought about the war, we went to a rally in support of him.The streets in Jerusalem leading up to the Knesset, Israel's parliament, were a sea of blue and white Israeli flags, and the noise from vast loudspeakers set up along the route was deafening.The crowd – mostly dressed in accordance with conservative religious rules – surged past buses with reinforced windows, fresh from ferrying groups of settlers from the occupied West Bank. Many young men carried M16 rifles slung over their shoulders.I met Yisrael and his wife near the entrance."We can't end the war [now]," says Yisrael. "It'll end when Hamas is totally defeated and the whole infrastructure is totally taken apart. If you leave it now, they'll rebuild everything and the situation will come back in another three or four years."Like almost all Israelis, he agreed that getting the hostages home was very important – but said there were other considerations too.
"There have to be some conditions," he said. "You can't save some people now, and then there's another war in two or three years, a thousand more deaths. That's not going to help anyone."Further into the crowd, another demonstrator, Avigdor Bargil, said the war should stop only "when Hamas is on its knees" – and that Gazans should move to other countries, like Indonesia, France and the UK."It's not their home, they took it," he said, when I asked why Gazans should leave their home. "This is our land – the land God gave us in the Torah."
Dreams of annexation
This religious justification for seizing Palestinian land has been a regular theme of hard-right nationalist parties in Netanyahu's coalition, since well before the war.Cabinet members like finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, have long pushed for Israel to annex the occupied West Bank – or assert "sovereignty" as he puts it – but the war in Gaza, and the stance taken by US President Donald Trump, have opened up dreams of annexing that territory too.Netanyahu needs to keep his coalition together, or run the risk of early elections.And according to the respected US polling agency, Pew Research Center, the idea of expelling Gazans from their land has the support of a huge majority of Israelis – even secular ones.Some right-wing voters are starting to turn against the war. But beneath the headlines of opinion polls, divisions over the war still largely fall along political lines.Around half of right-wing Israelis told an IDI survey last week that the war could still bring back the hostages or destroy Hamas; only 6% of those on the left felt the same.
After a brief moment of unity after the Hamas attacks, old political divisions have resurfaced here, as deep as ever.Mayan Eliahu Ifhar, the developmental psychologist at the protest in Tel Aviv, says that differences over the war are dividing her from friends, not just from adversaries."When I hear the bombs in Gaza, it tears me apart. But there are people, even my friends, who hear these bombs and say, 'ok they deserve it'. I can't spend time with them. I just can't look them in the eyes."
'It's my home, my country'
Amit Halevy, the protestor who described the abuse she received at peace demonstrations, decided several months ago to leave Israel for a while and head to America, to find respite from the daily confrontation with her compatriots.But here too, she has found herself isolated.She told me how she had been to a pro-Palestinian demo there, and that when she told people she was from Israel, some didn't want to speak to her.
"I said I was on their side, and that I go to pro-Palestinian demos in Israel," Amit told me. "One girl asked me stupid questions, like 'do your friends support the genocide?' I support any action that calls to stop what's happening in Gaza, but I can see how full of hate these demos are and it breaks my heart."Accusations of antisemitism have tainted some pro-Palestinian movements in Europe and America, complicating the situation for Israelis like Amit."I don't think anyone can hate Israel as much as I hate it now, because I feel so betrayed by it – and it's my home, it's my country, it's my language, my people, my friends.""What Israel is doing right now is the worst thing, not only for Palestinians, but for Israelis and Jews. It will forever be this horrible stain."