Anti-government protesters call for peace, hope this will be their last weekend in Gaza

Speakers at the anti-government demonstration on Begin Road, outside the IDF headquarters, hail the renewed push to end the war in Gaza, as Israel and Hamas seem close to a ceasefire-hostage deal based on US President Donald Trump’s proposal.

Yotam Kipnis, who lost his parents in the Hamas massacre in Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7, 2023, says, “nothing will bring them back, but there is still so much that can be saved; if it can be saved, then it’s our duty to save it, in a deal.”

He quotes a speech he gave in April 2023 during a protest against the judicial overhaul: “We are the cannon fodder and the scapegoat that the government is willing to sacrifice on the altar of messianism.”

“Now, too, on October 4, the writing is on the wall. Now, even before the war ends, we need to think about the day after,” he says. “There will be peace between us and the Palestinians, because it has to happen. The only question is how much [blood] will be spilled until that happens.”

Rula Daoud, co-chair of Israeli-Palestinian socialist group Standing Together, also addresses the Begin Road protest.

“We, the Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel, join the demand to end the war, not just because we have no faith in the government, but because this is an unjust war being waged on our own people,” she says. “The struggle for humanitarian aid to Gaza is not just the struggle of Arab citizens, and the struggle to return the hostages is not just the struggle of the Jewish citizens.”

Mali Darwish, an activist who reads the names of remaining hostages at the end of the weekly Begin Road rallies, says that she is “optimistic that this time is the last weekend that I’ll read the names.”