Amid fire and water, Israel’s citizens call for ceasefire, exit from Gaza

“We don't win a war over the bodies of hostages," they chanted.

As the Israeli police blasted them with water cannons and made dozens of arrests on 17 August, Sunday, a significant proportion of Israeli citizens seem to have moved from focusing on the demand for deal with Hamas to free all remaining hostages to a new objective: roll back prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's expanded war into Gaza.

On Sunday, Israeli protesters aimed to shut down the country with a one-day strike that blocked roads and shut down businesses. (Sundays are typically a working day in Israel, which observes its Shabbat on Saturdays.)

Families of the hostages organised demonstrations, some simple sit-ins, some more raucous, amid growing frustration around the plans for a new military offensive in some of Gaza's most densely populated areas — with legitimate fears that these renewed aggressions could further endanger the remaining hostages. There are believed to be 50 hostages (or their remains) still in Hamas' hands, of whom perhaps 20 may still be alive.

“We don't win a war over the bodies of hostages," protesters chanted in one of the largest and fiercest protests in the last 22 months of the retaliatory attack that began 8 October 2023.

As protesters blockaded roads and lit bonfires of tires late into the day, gathering outside politicians' homes and military headquarters and across major highways, they had support from several former army and intelligence chiefs too, all calling for Netanyahu to agree to ceasefire terms.

Amongst them was a former hostage as well.

“The only way to bring (hostages) back is through a deal, all at once, without games," said Arbel Yehoud, participating at a demonstration in Tel Aviv. Her boyfriend Ariel Cunio is still being held by Hamas. “Military pressure doesn't bring hostages back — it only kills them.” 

On the other hand, there were openly pro-Palestine voices as well. One protester carried a photo of an emaciated Gazan child — the kind of image and sentiment once rare in Israeli demonstrations, which were focused on the 'bring them home' message on behalf of the hostages. Of late, though, both internationally and even in Israel, shame, horror and outrage have grown with more than 250 malnutrition-related deaths reported from the Gaza Strip.

While some restaurants and theatres in Tel Aviv also voluntarily closed down in solidarity, per the Associated Press' reports, police said they arrested 38 people.

The new offensive would require the call-up of thousands of reservists too, another concern for many Israelis.

Meanwhile, the IDF killed another 17 Gazans hoping for aid in the Morag corridor and elsewhere in the Palestinian territory.

But can Prime Minister Netanyahu call back his warhorses?

The prime minister, meanwhile, is caught between a rock and a hard place, seemingly, with key members of his right-wing coalition again threatening a revolt.

]“Those who today call for an end to the war without defeating Hamas are not only hardening Hamas' position and delaying the release of our hostages, they are also ensuring that the horrors of 7 October will be repeated," Netanyahu said of the ongoing protests — and he may have little room to change his stance.

The last time Israel agreed to a ceasefire that released hostages earlier this year, far-right members of his cabinet threatened to topple the government.

Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich on Sunday, one of the hardliners, also called the demonstrations “a bad and harmful campaign that plays into Hamas' hands, buries the hostages in the tunnels and attempts to get Israel to surrender to its enemies and jeopardize its security and future”.

For the families of the hostages, however, bearing the yellow ribbons of solidarity chosen by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, the answer is simple: It does not save lives, it costs yet more of them — and this is a simple truth they hope everyone should understand, irrespective of their political alignment.

“Today, we stop everything to save and bring back the hostages and soldiers. Today, we stop everything to remember the supreme value of the sanctity of life,” said Anat Angrest, mother of hostage Matan Angrest. “Today, we stop everything to join hands — right, left, centre and everything in between.”

Even as the protests continued, two more children died of malnutrition-related causes in Gaza, bringing the total over the last 24 hours to seven, according to the health ministry there, which is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. Five adults also died of apparent starvation.

Alongside, COGAT — the military body also responsible for coordinating the dispersal of humanitarian aid into Gaza — said on Sunday that a larger influx of tents would now be allowed, if not food and water, sanitary and medical supplies. Apparently, the United Nations may now ‘resume’ supply of shelter equipment into Gaza ahead of plans to forcibly evacuate people from combat zones “for their protection”.

Hospitals and witnesses in Gaza said Israeli forces killed at least 17 aid-seekers on Sunday, including nine awaiting UN aid trucks close to the Morag corridor.

Hamza Asfour reportedly told the Associated Press said he was just north of the corridor, waiting for the convoy, when Israeli snipers open fire into the crowds. Tanks took up the refrain too from hundreds of metres away. Asfour said he saw two people with gunshot wounds — one in the chest and the other in the shoulder.

“It's either to take this risk or wait and see my family die of starvation,” he added, however.

With AP inputs