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During the more than 600 days of war in Gaza, there has been a steady chorus of Israelis clamoring for their leaders to strike a deal with Hamas. Many Israelis have been loud and unabashed about their push to end the war, to ensure the return of the hostages held by militants in Gaza. But as casualties mount and food is being greatly restricted into the enclave, public discourse has been changing. Speaking out about the plight of Palestinians in Gaza is becoming less taboo. NPR's Hadeel Al-Shalchi reports.
(SOUNDBITE OF DRUMMING)
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting in non-English language).
HADEEL AL-SHALCHI, BYLINE: A small but noisy group of protesters are penned behind a metal fence encircled by Israeli police near the border with Gaza, just on the other side of a dusty hill. People chanted slogans to end the war in Gaza and waved Israeli flags. The protest is organized by a left-wing Israeli peace group, but not everyone here is a veteran activist.
(SOUNDBITE OF BANGING ON COOKING POT)
AL-SHALCHI: Sixty-eight-year-old Este Cohen bangs on an empty cooking pot - she says, to highlight hunger in Gaza. She says, right after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7 in 2023, she was all for an Israeli response. But as the war drags on, she says it's gone too far.
ESTE COHEN: We heard the children are dying because of lack of food. And I cannot agree. I can't accept it.
AL-SHALCHI: Cohen took a bus for four hours to get to the border protest. Soli Abraham lives nearby but isn't a regular at these events. He, too, thought it was right to fight after the Hamas attack but not anymore.
SOLI ABRAHAM: Children are getting dead over there. We want our hostages to be home. And all the situation right now is not really contributing to this - to bring them home.
AL-SHALCHI: The antiwar sentiment in Israel has largely been driven by the desire to get the hostages back home. Now at demonstrations, though, you can see Israelis carrying pictures of Palestinian children who were killed, as well as signs with slogans to end genocide, a charge Israel is disputing at a U.N. court in The Hague. And now prominent Israeli politicians are calling out Israel's conduct, like centrist politician and a former Israeli military chief of staff Moshe Ya'alon.
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MOSHE YA'ALON: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: In an interview last month, Ya'alon accused the government of sending the Israeli military into Gaza to commit war crimes. And Yair Golan, a left-wing opposition leader and former deputy chief of staff in the Israeli military, told Israeli public media that the country was becoming a pariah state.
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YAIR GOLAN: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: "A sane state does not wage war against civilians, does not kill babies as a hobby. It does not set goals for itself like the expulsion of a population," Golan said. Left-leaning journalist Meron Rapoport says hearing this rhetoric from politicians is giving more Israelis the freedom to speak out themselves.
MERON RAPOPORT: As the images coming out of Gaza of starvation, of children dying of hunger and, of course, change of public opinion in the West.
AL-SHALCHI: Which has hit home for many, he says - for the first time, strong allies of Israel are threatening to punish it, even withhold economic cooperation. But the shift in discourse is nuanced and finding its footing. In a recent survey commissioned by Pennsylvania State University, 82% of Israeli Jews polled said they supported the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza. Even leftist politician Golan backtracked his comments about killing as a hobby after some public backlash including some members of the Israeli military. And there are those who want the war to continue, like the father of Eitan Mor, still being held hostage in Gaza. Tzvika Mor was recently in Jerusalem, lobbying lawmakers. He says fighting Hamas is the only way to free his son.
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TZVIKA MOR: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: "We don't want to kill babies. We want to maintain our security," he says.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MOR: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: "If, to protect our babies, we have to kill the enemy, then that's what we'll do," Mor says. For now, Mor's stance is the Israeli government's policy, to press on with the war despite the high Palestinian death toll, even as the antiwar voices get bolder. Hadeel Al-Shalchi, NPR News, Tel Aviv. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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