LONDON: At precisely 6:29 a.m. on Tuesday, Israel’s Hostages and Missing Families Forum launched a “day of struggle” in towns and cities across the country.
It was the biggest mass protest to date against what many in Israel now see as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s willful determination to escalate the war in Gaza at all costs — including the potential sacrifice of the remaining hostages who have been held by Hamas since the attack on Israel, which began at 6:29 a.m. on Oct. 7, 2023.
It was also the most dramatic demonstration yet of an increasingly obvious reality: that the war in Gaza is exposing deep fractures within Israeli society.
Global outrage over the war in Gaza reached new heights on Monday following an Israeli strike on a hospital that killed 20 people, including five journalists working for international news outlets.
But opposition to the war is also rising inexorably within Israel itself, even as the Israel Defense Forces press ahead with Netanyahu’s plan to broaden the war and attack Gaza City in the face of international condemnation.
