There are mothers of soldiers in Gaza who are part of Israel’s anti-war movement

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The head of the U.N. Human Rights Office for the Palestinian territories, Ajith Sunghay, described seeing children this week in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians have fled, digging for bricks to hold in place tents made with plastic bags.

Israel’s government vehemently rejects the charge of genocide, arguing the war is against Hamas and not all of Gaza. Israel says Hamas is to blame because it uses civilian infrastructure to hide and carry out its attacks against Israel.

ACRI’s Executive Director Noa Sattath said there is an “unprecedented” crackdown on free speech in Israel. She said police were arresting activists on their way to protests.

Lawyers for The Association for Civil Rights in Israel applied for a court order to hold the protest in Tel Aviv after police refused to issue permits. Police have made many arrests in the last few weeks in Israel at smaller anti-war rallies. The group is trying to get permits issued in other cities for similar protests.

A group called Standing Together organizes marches for Palestinians and Jews in the country. They were with other peace groups.

A young man with a rifle slung over his shoulder shook his girlfriend’s head as they watched protesters chant for an armistice in Tel Aviv’s busy streets. The woman shouted at the marchers.

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“We will continue to fight at full strength until we achieve all our goals,” he said, adding that includes “the return of all our hostages — and I say again, only military pressure will lead to their release.”

“The war is bad for Israelis and Palestinians. He said the war was good for Hamas and Netanyahu. “They both have interests in the war, of dead people, people scared from each other.”

Cindy Cohen, an antiwar activist at the march, said that talking about Jews and Palestinians in peace threatens the Israeli government because it only wants separation and fighting. She said if the war ends, new elections would be held, threatening Netanyahu’s grip on power.

But how to free the hostages — through continued fighting or diplomacy — is a point of fierce debate and disagreement, including among Israel’s War Cabinet.

“Bring Them Home” is the slogan on the streets of Tel Aviv, a reference to the hostages taken in the attacks. It is a cry everyone in Israel supports, as a number of captives have died in the war there.

Israeli officials say that the public’s reaction is still raw from the Hamas attack on southern Israeli communities. Conflict experts say the war is one of the most destructive in recent history. Many Israelis believe the only way to crush Hamas and secure Israel is militarily.

But Goren says Israel’s continued bombardment of Gaza more than 100 days since the Oct. 7 attack only serves the political interests of Hamas and Israel’s far-right government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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“I hope we are not the minority, I hope that most of the people want to live in peace and have a good relationship with our neighbors,” said Avigail Arnheim, a protester in her 60s.

The lack of clean drinking water is one reason the U.N.’s children’s fund says that there are many kids exposed to a lethal combination of nutrition, hunger and dehydration. The siege and war in Gaza have resulted in the most life-threatening form of malnutrition being faced by thousands.

“My people did it. My government did it,” Arnheim said, referring to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. “This is why I stand here. I want to change the way I think.

The protesters represent a small minority in Israel, where most people support the war. A poll taken by the Israel Democracy Institute in late December found that two-thirds of Israelis don’t think the military should scale back its bombardment of densely populated areas of Gaza.

Shay Daniely said he understands the fears evoked by the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel. He’s with the group Breaking the Silence that collects accounts of veteran Israeli soldiers speaking out about their time in service. But Daniely said most Israelis either do not understand what’s happening in Gaza or prefer not to look.

You can read the mainstream news. The 7th of October looks like it was when the war began, he said. “There’s no understanding or footage of the Palestinian people, the Gazans, so it’s really one-dimensional.”

He’s part of a small anti-war movement in Israel calling for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, where 2.3 million people are struggling to survive months of Israeli bombardment and a near total siege of the territory.

The anti-war mothers initiative has received little public exposure. But they are drawing inspiration from a similar grassroots protest movement of soldiers’ mothers called the Four Mothers, credited with swaying public opinion against Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon and its high soldier death toll, leading to the withdrawal of Israeli troops in 2000.

“Anyone who wants to identify with Gaza is welcome. Israel’s chief of police said in a video in October he would help them get there, and put them on buses that were heading there right now.

“Let us win the war,” shouted Rina Shamir into a megaphone outside a Tel Aviv hotel where U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was staying on a recent visit. Shamir’s husband and son are both fighting in Gaza.

The Mothers of the Fighters want to intensify the fight in Gaza and resist U.S. calls to scale down military operations.

The mothers say that their sons and daughters in the military have to fulfill their responsibilities and they should be supported as my child. “I am a mother and I must fulfill my role to advocate for peace,” she says.

“He knows, partially, about the group,” Sahar says. He thinks that there has to be a cease-fire in order to get the hostages out of Gaza and he isn’t like me.

A mother to a soldier who wanted to be identified by her nickname, said that the majority was in such a shock after the events of Oct. 7 that they were not able to encourage other solutions.

He told us it was similar to the city of Hiroshima. He’s been shocked by the destruction,” says one mother, who only gives her nickname, Tali. “It’s, like, useless. It’s leading to kill our sons. This is the only thing I see.”

Seven women attended the group’s first meeting. Some mothers were able to tell their sons what their time in Gaza was like.

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He looked at me and asked, “How much do you want to hear?” So I said to talk to me. She says that he had some terrible stories, but she doesn’t want to tell them. He is going to have a very serious wound in his soul.

His army outfit of 16 soldiers is now down to seven, she says. A person was killed along the Israel-Gaza border in October, and eight others were wounded during the invasion of Gaza.

She never imagined that her son would be sent to Gaza. “I was climbing the walls. I was very nervous.

Israel was able to negotiate with Hamas for the release of about half of the hostages after she called for it on her sign.

She says that policemen aggressively threw her to the ground. Israelis passing by on the street called out death threats to her.

On Oct. 12, Brody-Bareket was walking in downtown Jerusalem, holding a handwritten sign, on her way to attend the very first protest demonstration called since the beginning of the war. When she arrived, nobody was there. The police had broken up the demonstration.