Under a blistering sun, a group of women and mothers converged here from across Israel to share personal stories of why they had come – to the border with Gaza – to protest the war going on inside.
The only shade was under a large black tarp strung between eucalyptus trees.
Then, as evening began to fall on Tuesday, a convoy of cars swirling clouds of dust arrived at the site where members of the newly launched Coalition of Women and Mothers Against the War had set up camp. Many of the women have sons serving in Gaza now.
Why We Wrote This
Israel is seeing a groundswell of protest against the war in Gaza. Following the government’s decision to send ground forces into Gaza City, a new women’s group, including mothers of combat soldiers, set up a protest camp on the border.
Their rallying cry heard here and at protests around the country last week – after Israel announced it would be expanding the war – is that it’s up to women and mothers to stop wars.
In doing so, they are borrowing a page from a generation of mothers before, whose demonstrations calling for an Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon was considered key to forcing the government to do so in 2000.
“We need to end this war that is simply not ending, and it’s women who have to put an end to it,” says architect Anat Mogilner. “It’s our children who are serving there, and we are not prepared to let them fight in Gaza anymore for what has become a political war, one they are fighting only for the leadership.”
Ms. Mogilner says she spent a year and a half too distraught to sleep while her son was serving in Gaza as a conscript. She was among some 500 people who gathered on Tuesday at the protest site, which was in operation from Sunday through Wednesday.
Together, they marched to a nearby memorial for the 16 women soldiers who served as border lookouts for the Israeli army and were killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack that sparked the war.
Groundswell of protest
Some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed in that attack on Israeli border communities, the most traumatic and deadly in the country’s history. Officials in Gaza say more than 61,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in the war since, which has reduced much of Gaza to rubble. According to the army, 898 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the fighting.
Ms. Mogilner’s 22-year-old son recently completed his mandatory three-year army service. She fears he will be called up soon as a reservist to fight in Gaza City, following the government’s decision last week to send ground troops there, the largest city in the embattled enclave, with the stated goal of vanquishing Hamas.
“I am not willing to sacrifice my son,” said Ms. Mogilner, who lives in Kibbutz Hatzor, in southern Israel, about 20 miles from the border with Gaza.
The mothers’ camp is part of a groundswell of protest across Israel against continuing the war itself. Of the 251 Israelis taken hostage Oct. 7, some 50 remain inside Gaza, 20 of whom are considered to still be alive, though in fragile condition. Israel’s own military chief of staff has been strikingly vocal about his opposition to broadening the war, citing fears it could endanger the hostages. Activists seeking a release of the hostages and an end to the war have called for a general strike by Israelis next week.
After 22 months of war, exhaustion – both physical and mental – of conscripts and reservists is also a concern cited by families and soldiers, and reportedly by army officials themselves.
Also on Tuesday, in a protest outside the army’s Tel Aviv headquarters, several hundred Israeli air force reservists and retired pilots demanded an immediate ceasefire in return for a hostage deal, echoing polls that consistently show around 70% of the population wants the same thing.
In Israel – where wars have traditionally been fought as consensus wars, or as Israelis often call them, wars “of no choice” – this marks a significant departure and shows how deeply unpopular this conflict has become.
Adding to the chorus of protest is growing awareness of the hunger crisis in Gaza, exacerbated by Israel’s blocking of food aid in an effort to pressure Hamas to soften its conditions for a ceasefire.
“Wars end when mothers take a stand”
Dalit Shemesh, a software developer from Tel Aviv, says the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is one of several reasons she had come to join fellow mothers to protest. “I’m not prepared to send our Israeli children to do terrible things,” she says.
“No one is telling us what the end point of this war is,” says Ms. Shemesh, who adds that she’s alarmed at attempts she is seeing by supporters of the far-right government to silence dissent.
Next to her, Hani Ron, an art teacher, speaks of her fears as a mother and grandmother. Her granddaughter will soon be 18, the age Israeli Jewish youth are drafted into the army.
“I don’t know what to tell her. I’m scared that this government will not protect her and that she won’t be fighting for the state itself, but for those in power,” she says.
Arms linked, some wearing T-shirts emblazoned with a single word, “mom,” the protesters made their way from the tent camp to the memorial for the female lookouts on a hill overlooking Gaza.
A woman with a megaphone, her voice raspy from leading protests, led them in their signature chant: “Wars end when mothers take a stand.”
As they climbed the hill, they passed the photos of the young women killed on Oct. 7. Their unit had repeatedly warned higher-ups that they had noticed unusual Hamas activity near the border fence. But their warnings were dismissed, sparking outrage among some that sexism played into the hubris of the biggest intelligence failure in Israel’s history.
“We are doing what we can. I hope the government will change course. When women are actually listened to, good things happen,” says Rakefet Brand, a personal coach from the central Israeli town of Gadera.
“It’s our anger, our rage, that will end this war,” Sara Haviv, a former judge, told the protesters. “They may try to silence us because we are the majority voice. The mothers are rebelling.”
