‘We can’t win this war’: Tel Aviv protester calls for end to Gaza op, new elections

Rotem Telem, a Tel Aviv resident, says she came to the protest at Habima Square out of a profound sense of “despair and fear” over the situation in the country, specifically the ongoing deaths of Israelis soldiers and Palestinian civilians in Gaza amid the war against Hamas.

“People on both sides are dying for no purpose. I’m afraid they’re telling us we’re winning a war which we lost on October 7,” says Telem despondently.

“We can’t win this war. You can’t change paradigms with war. Children dying is not a policy,” she continues.

Telem says she wants immediate elections to be held and insists that holding an election campaign despite the ongoing war is possible, but says she doesn’t actually support any of the likely candidates.

“Gantz isn’t a solution, Lapid is too right-wing, but they would at least be able to renew the proper functioning of government departments which have been gutted by Netanyahu, and restore the state so we can continue onwards,” she says.