Eurasia Press & News
Lining the streets of Jerusalem are pictures of Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza in the last 18 months, with the words “Until victory” scrawled across the smiling men in uniform.
Juxtaposing these signs are posters reading, “Until the last hostage”, next to the faces of those kidnapped by Hamas on 7 October 2023.
These poster campaigns represent the increasing divide in Israeli society between those wanting to continue Israel’s war on Gaza no matter the cost and those demanding an immediate ceasefire and hostage exchange deal.
The former message was organised by the “Until Victory” forum, a movement calling to continue the war until Hamas is eradicated, who responded to growing calls from Israeli reservists to end the war with a counter-letter from tens of thousands of reservists demanding “to eradicate the phenomenon of refusal and to dismiss those who encourage it”.
On 10 April, 970 current and former Israel Air Force reservists penned a letter demanding the return of the remaining 59 hostages held in Gaza and an end to the fighting, writing “the war serves mainly political and personal interests”.
“Continuing the war does not benefit any of its declared goals, and will cause the deaths of hostages, IDF [Israel Defence Forces] soldiers, and innocent civilians,” the veterans and reservists wrote.
Israel’s military swiftly responded to the petition, saying they would dismiss the active reservists – about 60 of the signatories – leading to 25 withdrawing their support. Both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz condemned the letter.
Yet in recent weeks, over 140,000 Israeli civilians, reservists, and veterans joined the Air Force’s call, issuing letters of their own urging for immediate cessation of hostilities and a hostage deal.
Along with the petitions, a wave of reservists is also refusing to show up for duty. While the army doesn’t publicly disclose these numbers, Israeli media estimated the attendance rate of soldiers hovering around 60 percent or even at 50 percent or lower.
According to Restart Israel, a movement advocating for a democratic Israel, nearly 12,000 reservists have refused over the course of the war.
“This is a sea change,” Yael Berda, a sociology professor at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, told The New Arab. “A refuser is choosing their morals and values personally over the military, that’s perceived as going against the collective.”
Military service is mandatory for all Israelis and a unifying hallmark of Israel’s nationalistic culture. The Israeli public looks to those serving in the Air Force or intelligence units with esteem and admiration, while those who refuse to serve not only risk imprisonment but are often shamed and ostracised by their peers.
“The Israeli army has been since 1948 [when the state was founded], such a holy cow, such a taboo within Israeli society,” an activist with New Profile, an Israeli feminist movement to demilitarise Israel, told TNA.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, New Profile continued, “Many people that don’t go to the army every year or don’t finish their army service, they have to lie, they have to [frequently] hide it because it’s such a huge issue”.
Yet the Israeli public is now at a crossroads in its perception of military service.
“The bind that Netanyahu put everybody in here was basically participate in the destruction of another people or refuse, which is participating in the demise of the one institution that holds the Israeli society together,” Berda said.
Destroying from within
As Israel’s longest-running war drags into its second year, soldiers and society at large are feeling the toll of endless fighting.
According to Israel’s Employment Service, 75% of reservists say they’ve been hurt economically, with 41% saying they were fired, forced to quit their jobs, or shutter their businesses.
Divorce rates are also spiking as reservists are now away from home for longer periods of time. In 2024, the rate of divorce among Jewish Israelis rose 6.5% compared to the previous year, climbing to figures not seen since 2021 during the coronavirus-spurred lockdowns.
The Israeli military reports 884 soldiers have been killed since the war began, with over 15,000 physically or mentally injured and absorbed into the rehabilitation system.
However, Israel’s Chief of Staff revealed those numbers are significantly higher than officially disclosed.
“Reservists are exhausted. They are feeling hopelessness. They’ve suffered economically, and they don’t think that such a war is something that they’re willing to risk their life or their work or their family for,” Ishai Menuchin, a leader in the Israeli refuser movement, Yesh Gvul (“There is a Limit”), said.
The reason for refusal varies among reservists. Some are burnt out while others are morally opposed, seeing the war as not about achieving security and rescuing the hostages, Menuchin explained.
“The main issue of this war is to keep Netanyahu in power and not actually finding any solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the safety of the people of Israel,” Menuchin said.
The prime minister is currently on trial for corruption and facing growing calls to resign.
Having spoken with soldiers, Menuchin emphasises, though, that while the majority refuse to serve over the war in Gaza, only a minority cite Israeli occupation.
“The main reasoning is the war in Gaza, but it’s mixed. The occupation, the places that we are still in in southern Lebanon and deep inside Syria,” Menuchin said. “You can’t isolate one thing and say, ‘here we are bad, but in the rest of the issues, we are great.’ And people feel that.”
New Profile has worked with thousands of army refusers since the war began and says the number has steadily increased throughout the war.
“The majority of them are not as radicalised and are not going to speak about a genocide, but they’re still making this choice of not taking part, so it has a big political value, especially because it’s the majority,” New Profile said.
While collective refusal is nearly unheard of in Israel, the 1982 Lebanon War gave this idea legitimacy as swathes of reservists refused to participate in a war they felt wasn’t justified.
Yet Menuchin explains the mood among those refusing today is vastly different from the mass refusal movement from decades ago.
“They refused with some sort of optimism that they will help to bring a change. Now, speaking with many soldiers, you feel that they’re depressed,” Menuchin said. “They don’t know what’s going to happen here.”
A lack of clarity and no end to the war in sight has left Israelis fatigued, drained, and further fractured.
“There’s obviously no out plan,” Berda said. “People understand that the destruction of Gaza and what’s now going on also in the [occupied] West Bank spells the destruction of Israel itself.”
