Mass protest in Israel against Netanyahu's Gaza City occupation plan

Thousands of people have taken to the streets of Tel Aviv to protest the Israeli government's plan to escalate the war in Gaza. Organisers say more than 100,000 turned out for the rally. It was the first since Israel's Security Cabinet approved plans to occupy Gaza City. Critics fear another escalation of the 22-month war will further jeopardise the likelihood that the 50 remaining hostages in Gaza, both living and dead, will ever be brought back to Israel. The EW spoke to the father of one hostage, the kidnapped Israeli soldier, Matan Angrest. Last sign of life for Matan is the last four months and it's very difficult, very difficult to waking up every morning and see the first room in the apartment is empty. The EW correspondent Tania Klima was at Saturday's protests in Tel Aviv. She told us more about the latest demonstrations. Well, I think you could feel tonight really the frustration, the anger, but also a lot of sadness that, you know, this is now over 670 days that those 50 hostages, some of them deceased, about 20 I believe to be alive, remain in Gaza. And now comes this decision by the government to occupy Gaza City to actually intensify the war also further. And relatives here have made that very clear tonight. They're very, very concerned about their relatives there, for those that are still alive and some I believe to be held somewhere in Gaza City, that they might be harmed or even killed by their captors if the Israeli army goes in there with ground forces. Or that also the ones that are deceased are maybe lost forever. And we heard some very, very strong words here. You know, people here have lost trust in the government, at least some of the people here, that they will actually go for a deal. And people here feel, you know, over between 70 and 80 percent, according to polls of Israelis, what they're calling for here tonight, again, end the war and bring the hostages home. That was DW correspondent Tania Klima there in Tel Aviv at those protests. Well, for more on this, let's bring in Mairav Sonshine, who is a senior analyst on Israel for the International Crisis Group, always generous with her time. Mairav, good to see you after huge protests. Do we take it, do you take it as a signal that popular opinion on Israel's war in Gaza may be changing? It's good to be with you. I mean, look, the majority of Israelis have been calling for months for a hostage deal. They have understood over the course of this war that the Netanyahu government is not putting the hostages first and that the tactics or strategy are not able to defeat Hamas in Gaza, have not achieved the war goals. So it's not new that the government, that the protesters and the public want this war to end. What has shifted a bit is the isolation, the growing isolation of Israel. We heard a few days ago Germany's chancellor talking about an embargo, largely symbolic of arms to Israel, but still unprecedented in German-Israel relations. Israelis understand that the hostages are going to get killed if Israel continues on its path and that Israel as a country is going to be more and more isolated. So they are concerned about it and they want it to stop. The problem is that protests of this kind haven't proved to be effective in changing the government's policy until now. You allude to the growing sense of isolation. Are there indications yet of public attitudes specifically towards the plan to occupy in Gaza City? Yes, I mean, you've had the IDF chief of staff himself openly against it. You have the security elites, the former security elites in Israel talking about how this war is no longer achieving any goals. And you have a public who's also very concerned about, as I said, the hostages. So the takeover of Gaza City specifically for the public is a death sentence for the hostages. It's also going to cause high soldier casualties. And as many military analysts have said, and I'm also saying, there's no reason to believe that more military force is going to create a different result in Gaza. And even the far right ministers in Netanyahu's government are not happy with the idea of taking over Gaza City because it's not enough, it's too incremental, it's not going to completely erase Hamas, which is what they're demanding, which is of course an unreasonable demand. But nobody's really satisfied with this kind of decision, neither the public nor the people who want to resettle Gaza and the government. So you're kind of at this paralysis where Netanyahu I think understands he's failed. He's failed to achieve the goals since March that he put with the latest military operation and he's stuck. So he's looking to kind of use this big rhetoric about a reoccupation to try to get things moving. That's basically where we're at. Our correspondent in Tel Aviv spoke about the growing sense of frustration. Do you get that feeling as well that these rallies can affect Netanyahu's government's conduct of the war? Or is there a growing sense of hopelessness that they cannot achieve a change in the government's attitudes towards this war? I mean, mass protests took place even before October 7th against this government's judicial overhaul plan and its attacks on democratic mechanisms. They were somewhat effective. And then you had October 7th, which completely changed the way the public understands protests. But again, we've had, I think, 60,000 people out last night. That's a big number. But I don't think that's going to change the government's policy. This government and the way that Israel has, the last few years, the Israeli government has really become a much more authoritarian government. Netanyahu is there for political survival. It's very difficult to see how public protests are going to actually change. I think what would change the government's policies is if more and more massive amounts of soldiers in reserve duty specifically refused to serve in Gaza. A massive movement for refusal to go into Gaza when so many of them know that going in there is not going to achieve the goals, that it's going to kill the hostages. That would be effective because Israel is a militarist country. And one of the only ways to get anything moving is for people in the military to refuse. Marder Sunshine from the International Crisis Group, many thanks. Thank you.