Some Israelis are Shifting their Views on the War in Gaza
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Today on State of the World, some Israelis are shifting their views on the war in Gaza. You're listening to State of the World from NPR. We bring you the day's most vital international stories up close where they're happening. It's Wednesday, June 4th. I'm Greg Dixon. Ever since Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza began over a year and a half ago, there have been Israelis pressuring their government to end the fighting.

Many Israelis attend frequent protests, loudly calling for a deal with Hamas to return the hostages. But recently, public discourse has been changing. As casualties in Gaza mount and food entering the territory is being greatly restricted, speaking out about the plight of Palestinians there is becoming less taboo. And PRS Hadil Al-Shalchi takes us to one protest in Israel.

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. 68-year-old Esti 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 7th in 2023, she was all for an Israeli response. But as the war drags on, she says it's gone too far. We heard the children are dying because of lack of food and I cannot agree. I can't accept it. Cohen took a bus for four hours to get to the border protest.

Sully 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. Children are getting dead over there. We want our hostages to be home.

And all the situation right now is not really contributing to bring them home. The anti-war 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 UN 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. 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. A sane state does not wage war against civilians, does not kill babies as a hobby, and does not set goals for itself like the expulsion of a population, Golan said.

Left-leaning journalist Mehran Rapoport says hearing this rhetoric from politicians is giving more Israelis the freedom to speak out themselves. As the images coming out of Gaza of starvation, of children dying of hunger,

and of course, change of public opinion in the West. 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 Etan Moore, still being held hostage in Gaza, Zvika Moore was recently in Jerusalem, lobbying lawmakers. He says fighting Hamas is the only way to free his son. We don't want to kill babies.

We don't want to kill babies. We want to maintain our security, he says. If to protect our babies we have to kill the enemy, then that's what we'll do, Moore says. For now, Moore's stance is the Israeli government's policy. To press on with the war despite the high Palestinian death toll, even as the anti-war voices get bolder. Hadil Al-Shalchi, NPR News, Tel Aviv.

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