The police released the director after the incidents in the West Bank

Israeli Protests Netanyahu Hostages: The Number 533-Days Israel’s Have Been Since the War in Gaza Beginning

While most Israelis are protesting the war in regards to safety and wellbeing of the hostages, a growing number are acknowledging the suffering and death of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. At that same protest a few dozen held a kind of vigil for the children who died in Gaza, with photos of them in the crowd along with memorial candles. The “Stop the Genocide” sign was carried by other people, and it was said that more than 50,000 Palestinians had been killed in the war.

The Israel Policy Forum’s Efron says Netanyahu’s need to appease his right-wing political partners is related to the Israeli government’s return to war.

The public of Israel is exhausted. She says it’s in trauma. The politics of war are at play and the Israeli government is adamant about returning to war.

Omer Vinkur, a 26-year-old student at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, marched near the prime minister’s residence on Sunday wearing a sticker on his shirt with the number 533 — the number of days that hostages have been held in Gaza since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks on Israel. He said he showed up to remind the government that there are hostages in Gaza, and that it has a responsibility toward them.

Source: Why Israel’s having some of its biggest protests since the war in Gaza began

Why Israel’s having some of its biggest protests since the war in Gaza began: Mr. Dror and the father of Matan Tsangauker

“We do not accept this reality,” he said. “And we do not accept the theft of our country, and the theft of our security. We came to say this loud and clear.”

Ami Dror, a businessman from Israel, was one of the leaders of the protests against judicial reform before the war in Gaza started. He understands that the protests aren’t going to have a huge affect on the government’s decisions, but he still believes it’s important to show up.

“Those in power can say whatever they want. At a protest in Jerusalem on Sunday, the man said he was able to use tools. “We have marches, protests, and also civil disobedience — when we decide to shut the state down — and that’s exactly what needs to happen.”

The father of Matan Tsangauker, who is still being held by Hamas in Gaza, spoke at a demonstration on Saturday night, accusing Netanyahu of sacrificing the hostages and restarting the conflict to strengthen his political future.

“This is a real problem, and I want the protesters to show up every day until a new deal is signed,” she said. “We want to get the hostages out of the hell in Gaza.”

Source: Why Israel’s having some of its biggest protests since the war in Gaza began

A Palestinian Prisoner’s Journey Through the Isolated Front During the February Gaza Assassination Campaign: Israel’s First-Truncated Election Campaign

The government denies accusations of genocide. Netanyahu has said that those who claimed that the offensive in Gaza was for political gain have no shame.

“Amidst the return to fighting in Gaza, the Minister of Justice is taking advantage of the public’s eye being off the ball to hastily overhaul Israel’s judicial system,” wrote Guy Lurie of the nonpartisan Israel Democracy Institute.

Protesters are concerned about the government’s attempts to fire the attorney general and domestic security chief, as well as the legislation expected to pass Thursday that would give the ruling coalition more partisan influence over the judiciary.

Netanyahu said Saturday that there will be no civil war in Israel and that the country will remain a democratic one.

Over more than 50 days she was moved from place to place, mostly aboveground, at first alone with her captors and then held with other hostages. Though she told her captors she suffered from a chronic digestive disease, she said she was not provided with any medication. She said she was held in private residences, in a hospital and, shortly before her release, in a tunnel.

Ms. Gritzewsky said she was interrogated about her army service. (She completed her military duty a decade ago.) One of her captors hugged her and told her, while pointing his pistol at her, that even if there was a deal, she would not be released because he wanted to marry her and have her children, she said. She said one told her he was a mathematics teacher, and another, a lawyer. She said that her earrings and bracelet were taken.

She understood that Mr. Zangauker had also been kidnapped to Gaza — when she described his long hair to one of her captors, the captor appeared to confirm that he was a hostage, referring to him as being from Ofakim, the Zangaukers’ hometown — but she never saw him in captivity.

Some hostages held in Gaza were subjected to rape and sexual torture by their abductors, according to a UN report released last year. A U.N. commission also accused Israel of sexual- and gender-based violence during its campaign in Gaza, including torture, abuse and sexual humiliation.

Mr. Ballal was among four directors — the others were Mr. Adra, Rachel Szor and Yuval Abraham — in the Palestinian-Israeli film collective that received the Academy Award for best documentary this month. The film shows the destruction of homes by Israeli forces in the West Bank, in order to make way for a military training ground.

The episode brought attention to the attacks by settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank. Jewish extremists have set cars on fire and defaced homes during the past year. There were over 1,000 settler violence incidents recorded by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Part of the assault was shown in witness videos obtained and reviewed by The New York Times. In cellphone and dashcam footage, a masked man approaches three activists who had responded to calls from Palestinians for help, pushes them and tries to punch one of them. The three activists retreat to their car as several other masked men run toward it and smash the windshield with a rock.

The group of Israeli assailants, some masked, soon joined the others on the outskirts of the village, where they attacked two Palestinian homes, they said.

Nasser Nawaja, a fieldworker for the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem who lives in Susya, and other Palestinians said the confrontation began after the town’s residents had sought to drive away Israeli shepherds herding livestock on land claimed by the village.

The two sides told different tales of what happened when Mr. Ballal was arrested. In a statement, the Israeli military said “several terrorists” had hurled stones at Israeli vehicles, igniting a violent confrontation in which Israelis and Palestinians threw rocks at one another.

The sanctions imposed on individuals accused of carrying out violent acts against Palestinians have been canceled by President Trump. On Tuesday, the confirmation hearing was underway for Mike Huckabee, the man that President Trump named to be ambassador to Israel.

Human rights groups have long said that Israeli officials rarely crack down on the perpetrators. Despite a handful of high-profile prosecutions, a vast majority of police investigations into attacks by Israelis on Palestinians are closed without charges, according to Yesh Din, an Israeli rights group.

One Israeli settler, a minor, was also detained. He was released to receive medical treatment from the Israeli police, and they would be questioning him later.

The Israeli authorities on Tuesday released a Palestinian director of an Oscar-winning documentary who was detained overnight after what he and witnesses said was an attack by Israeli settlers in the West Bank.