Israelis want peace. Israelis want to get out of Gaza. This is not in our name – we are not our government. Israel must be stopped.
These are the desperate pleas of Yotam Cohen, whose younger brother Nimrod, a then 19-year-old Israeli soldier serving mandatory service, was taken captive to Gaza by Hamas militants during their deadly 7 October attack on southern Israel nearly two years ago.
This weekend, Yotam joined tens of thousands of people who marched on Israel’s military headquarters in Tel Aviv. Wielding portraits of their loved ones and banners, they urged world leaders to intervene. They protested against Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial plan to expand the devastating 22-month bombardment of Gaza, a plan he defended on Sunday, vowing in a press conference to “finish the job… finish Hamas”.
At the mass protest, some family members even called on soldiers to refuse to serve in the expanded fighting, and for the opposition to call a general strike. It follows waves of rallies across the country by Israelis calling on their government to return to the negotiating table.
“Israel must be stopped. The Israeli government has to be stopped. Hamas must be pressured to achieve a deal. But the main problem right now is the Israeli government,” Yotam says bluntly.
The decision to expand the war was pushed through the security cabinet last week, despite fierce resistance from Israel’s chief of staff Eyal Zamir and numerous former security and intelligence officials.
It will see Israeli forces, that according to the United Nations effectively hold more than 85 per cent of the strip, push into the last corners of the tiny enclave, starting with Gaza City, with the intent of taking full “security control”.
It is a move many in Israel fear will not only embroil the Israeli military in a costly, protracted, and unwinnable conflict, but also serve as a “death sentence” for the 20 remaining hostages – like Nimrod – who are still believed to be alive. It could also crush the hopes of retrieving the bodies of around 30 more slain captives who remain in the hands of the militants.
Some of the families told The Independent they are also deeply concerned about the humanitarian impact on Palestinian civilians, as the death toll from the bombardment surges past 61,000, according to local officials, and famine unfolds amid fighting and under an Israeli blockade.
“As an Israeli… First of all, we are not our government. Israelis want peace. Israelis want to get out of Gaza. Israelis do not support what is happening right now in Gaza,” Yotam says, with a quiet determination in his voice.
“It is our government – our so-called elected officials – who right now in our name, with the power we gave them democratically, who are using that power to commit atrocities: to kill Israeli soldiers, to kill Israeli hostages, to kill Palestinian civilians. This is not in our name.”
The desperation was echoed by Shay Dickmann, who says her family suffered the deadly consequences of a ceasefire deal collapsing and Israel choosing military pressure over negotiations.
In November 2023, Dickmann’s cousin Carmel Gat, 41 – an occupational therapist from Tel Aviv – was next on the list of hostages to be freed, but the truce collapsed the very day she was meant to be released.
She and five others were later shot dead by Hamas militants in a tunnel as Israeli forces advanced into Rafah in August 2024. The family say they believe she was alive just 48 hours before Israeli soldiers reached her.
“A year ago today, my cousin was still alive…. I was hopeful and also frightened, just like the families you see here today,” she says, through tears, at an earlier protest outside the home of Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant in the centre of the country.
“To the Israeli government, I [beg] make a deal now that brings back all 50 hostages. This is what the people of Israel want. This is what we wish for.
“And for the whole world: we need your help. We want the suffering to end. No one should be starving. No one should be suffering, no one should suffer from a terror organisation, neither the hostages, nor the Palestinians.”
“All we want is to live in peace and safety. We need the hostages to be back. We need this war to end.”
Israel launched an unprecedented bombardment of Gaza in response to Hamas’s deadly 2023 attacks on southern Israel, in which militants seized 251 hostages and killed over 1,000, according to Israeli estimates.
Since then, Israel’s bombardment, war with Hamas and blockade has killed tens of thousands, destroyed more than 90 per cent of homes and pushed the 25-mile-long enclave into starvation.
So far The Independent understands 148 hostages, eight of whom are dead, have been released in exchanges or other deals, while the Israeli military has retrieved 49 bodies. Only eight have been rescued alive by the security forces – which is why families fear military intervention is not effective.
Of those 50 still in captivity, Israel believes 27 are dead and Netanyahu has said there are “doubts” about the fate of several more.
Israel’s latest planned military escalation has already drawn national and global outrage: Sir Keir Starmer said hours after the announcement that it will “only bring more bloodshed”.
The UK joined dozens of countries — including Austria, Italy, Saudi Arabia, and ceasefire mediators Egypt and Qatar — in issuing separate statements against the decision.
Even Germany, a staunch ally of Israel during the war, announced it will no longer authorise exports of military equipment to Israel that could be used in Gaza until further notice.
Within Israel, the anger at the protracted conflict spreads beyond those directly caught up in the protracted conflict, with growing anger and resentment at the repeated reservist call-ups, the comparatively high death toll for Israeli soldiers, and concerns for the hostages. Polls show three quarters of the country support an immediate end of the war with a release of all the hostages as part of the deal.
There are also growing concerns about Israel’s global reputation amid a surge in condemnation over a famine unfolding in Gaza due to Israel’s blockade (something Israel denies and blames on Hamas). Some family members of the hostages fear Israel is becoming a pariah state.
“There’s so much international criticism about how Israel is acting, it feels like this government does not care about hearing that criticism,” says Ruby Chen, whose son Itay — a soldier in a tank brigade — was killed by Hamas on 7 October, and whose body was taken into Gaza where he has remained.
He says Netanyahu has “miscalculated,” and “superseded the dismantling of Hamas over the return of the hostages”, against the wishes of his people.
“I think that this humanitarian crisis in Gaza, both for the hostages and what is happening to the people in Gaza, has gone on long enough.
“There needs to be an international intervention if the prime minister is miscalculating. And it’s unfortunate that the US, as the mediator, is not putting both sides together and saying ‘enough is enough’. We feel like we are collateral damage.”
On Sunday, Netanyahu said he had a “fairly short timetable” in mind for next steps in Gaza, but didn’t give specifics and insisted his military takeover was the quickest way to end the war.
At the protests there were direct calls for Donald Trump — Israel’s closest ally and largest provider of weapons — to step up and push through a deal.
US special envoy Steve Witkoff reportedly met Qatari prime minister Abdulrahman Al-Thani in Spain on Saturday to discuss ending the Gaza war and the release of all remaining hostages and captives, in an apparent bid to prevent Israel’s planned expansion of its offensive.
There are allegedly frantic negotiations underway between the US, Qatar, and Egypt to try to restart talks.
But many fear Netanyahu’s new proposal will undermined those efforts. And pressure is mounting in Israel, especially after the militant group released new, galling videos of two emaciated Israeli hostages in tunnels last week, prompting accusations from Israel that Hamas was deliberately starving its captives.
In one, Evyatar David – who was seized from the Nova Music Festival – was described by his family as a “living skeleton” because he was so thin. He appears to be digging his own grave and speaks of going days without food.
His cousin Naama, 28, tells The Independent the family “can’t eat, we can’t sleep, we can’t breathe well, knowing what Evyatar is going through”.
Standing outside the Israeli defence minister’s office, she says she was “crying for help” and urged Israel to “defend your citizens. That’s your first obligation as your leaders. And if they’re gonna be dead there — the blood of the hostages is gonna be on your hands”.
“To the leaders of the world – we need you to stand up and speak out against Hamas.”
Lishay Miran, a mother-of-two whose husband Omri, now 48, was seized from Kibbutz Nahal Oz adds: “This is not just a military decision. This is a death sentence for the people we love the most.”
Lishay was briefly held by the militants with her two daughters, the youngest of whom was just six months old. She is now more than two years old and doesn’t remember her father, Lishay says in a voice cracked with pain.
She says Netanyahu’s decision “can really kill them all – we need to put the pressure on Israel, on Hamas, on Qatar — on everyone… there is no more time left.”
