Netanyahu now trains his guns on his own recalcitrant air force reservists

Israel's military said Friday, 11 April, it will fire air force reservists who signed a letter condemning the war in Gaza, accusing it of only serving political interests and not bringing the Hamas hostages home.

In a statement to the Associated Press, an army official said there was no room for anybody, any individual, including reservists on active duty, “to exploit their military status while simultaneously participating in the fighting”, calling it a breach of trust between commanders and subordinates.

The army said it has decided that any active reservist who signed the letter will not be able to continue serving. It did not specify how many people that included or whether the firings had begun.

Nearly 1,000 Israeli Air Force reservists and retirees signed the letter, published in Israeli media on Thursday, 10 April, demanding the immediate return of the hostages, even at the cost of ending the fighting.

The letter comes as Israel ramps up its offensive in Gaza, trying to pressure Hamas to agree to free hostages, 59 of whom are still being held, more than half of which are dead. Israel's imposed a blockade on food, fuel and humanitarian aid that has left civilians facing acute shortages as supplies dwindle.

Israel has pledged to seize large parts of the Palestinian territory and establish a new security corridor through it.

While the soldiers who signed the letter didn't refuse to keep serving, they are part of a growing number of Israeli soldiers speaking out against the 18-month conflict, some saying they saw or did things that crossed ethical lines.

“It's completely illogical and irresponsible on behalf of the Israeli policy-makers… risking the lives of the hostages, risking the lives of more soldiers and risking lives of many many more innocent Palestinians, while it had a very clear alternative,” Guy Poran, a retired Israeli Air Force pilot who spearhead the letter, told the AP.

He said he's not aware of anyone who signed the letter being fired and, since it was published, it has gained dozens more signatures, he added.

Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu downplayed the letter on Friday, saying it was written by a “small handful of weeds, operated by foreign-funded NGOs whose sole goal is to overthrow the right-wing government”. He added that anyone who encourages refusal will be immediately dismissed.

Soldiers are required to steer clear of politics and they rarely speak out against the army. After Hamas stormed into Israel on 7 October 2023, Israel quickly united behind a war it launched — purportedly against the militant group.

However, divisions within Israel too have grown as the war progresses, though most of the criticism has focused on the mounting number of soldiers killed and the failure to bring home the hostages — not on Israel’s actions in Gaza.

Advocates for hostages keep up the pressure for their return

Freed hostages and their families are doing what they can to keep attention on their plight, and urge the government to get everyone out.

For Holocaust Remembrance Day this year, Agam Berger, a military spotter who was taken hostage and freed in January, will perform at the March of the Living ceremony in Poland — a yearly memorial march at the site of Auschwitz that honours the 6 million Jews killed by Nazi Germany and celebrates the state of Israel.

Berger will play a 130-year-old violin that survived the Holocaust and was brought to Israel, at the main ceremony in the Birkenau concentration camp. She'll be accompanied by singer Daniel Weiss, a resident of Kibbutz Be'eri whose parents were murdered on 7 October.

Still, the war in Gaza shows no signs of slowing.

Since Israel ended an eight-week ceasefire last month, it said it will push further into Gaza until Hamas releases the hostages. More than 1,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire collapsed, according to the United Nations.

The Israeli military on Friday again issued an urgent warning to residents in several neighbourhoods in northern Gaza, calling on them to evacuate immediately. Strikes earlier this week killed at least 23 people, health officials said, including eight women and eight children.

Brazil pushes for the release of body of boy who died in Israeli custody

Also this week, Brazil's Embassy in the West Bank said it had requested the immediate release of the body of a 17-year-old Palestinian prisoner who died in Israeli custody.

A representative from Brazil's office in Ramallah told the AP it was helping the family speed up the process to bring Walid Ahmad's body home. Ahmad had a Brazilian passport.

According to an Israeli doctor who observed the autopsy, starvation was likely the primary cause of his death.

Ahmad had been held for six months without being charged. He was extremely malnourished and also showed signs of inflammation of the colon and scabies, said a report written by Dr Daniel Solomon, who watched the autopsy, conducted by Israeli experts, at the request of the boy's family.

Israel's prison service said it operates according to the law and all prisoners are given basic rights.