Some 1,000 relatives of fallen soldiers said to sign letter in support of Gaza fighting
Petition drafted by right-wing organization comes after recent wave of letters by various groups urging deal for the return of all hostages even at cost of ending war
Roughly 1,000 IDF reservists and civilian professionals, relatives of fallen soldiers, were said to have signed a letter published Friday urging Israel to continue its war in Gaza, marking a rebuttal to the growing wave of public appeals to prioritize the return of all hostages even at the cost of ending the war.
The letter, drafted by the right-wing Gvura (“Heroism”) Forum, asserted that the price of ending the war now would be “a grave danger to Israel’s security.”
The achievements [of the war] are many, but the mission is not yet complete,” the letter stated, adding that should Israel lay down its weapons in Gaza, it would set off a “countdown to the next massacre.”
The Gvura Forum said the letter was signed by some 1,000 relatives of soldiers killed amid the ongoing war in Gaza and in previous wars and operations on various fronts. However, it did not immediately publish the names of the signatories on its website, Facebook page or X feed.
“The war must not be stopped before all its goals are fully achieved — the return of the hostages, the elimination of the enemy and the assurance that Gaza will not pose a threat to the State of Israel,” the letter states. “Our loved ones went to war for victory, for security, and did not return, and we insist that their will be fulfilled and carried out.”
The letter by the Gvura Forum appears to have come as a response to an ongoing wave of petitions signed by various groups in Israel calling for a deal for the return of all the remaining hostages being held by the terror group Hamas in Gaza even at the price of ending the war.
יותר מ-1,000 בני משפחות שכולות נגד מכתבי המחאה שקוראים לעצירת המלחמה: "סכנה חמורה לביטחון ישראל, וספירה לאחור לטבח הבא"@HGoldich pic.twitter.com/oE6872XBv7
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) April 18, 2025
On Thursday, three more such petitions were published, containing the signatures of civil pilots, ex-soldiers and bereaved family members of fallen soldiers.
The trend was started by a letter by members of the Air Force, most of them retired, urging to end the war if that is the only way of returning the hostages.
Before the letter’s publication, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir and Israel Air Force chief Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar lobbied the signatories in private meetings to refrain from publishing the petition. After publication, the IDF threatened to dismiss the several dozen active reservists among those who signed the petition.
The Air Force letter was quickly emulated by people from other branches of the military, as well as groups from a variety of civilian professions.
One of the letters published Thursday was signed by 458 former members of the Golani Brigade calling for the immediate return of the hostages, even at the expense of the cessation of fighting.
Signatories included former IDF Intelligence chief Maj. Gen. (res.) Uri Sagi, former Central Command head Maj. Gen. (res.) Ilan Biran, and Maayan and Ron Kehati, whose son Sgt. Gur Kehati was killed in Lebanon in November.
Another letter, signed by 315 former members of reconnaissance and infantry units, stated: “This is the top-priority mission, these are the values that guide us, and this is our moral duty as a nation. This is a call to save lives.”
Most of the signatories to that letter are not currently serving in the reserves, Ynet noted.
The letters have not called for a general refusal to serve, but have sparked outrage in the government, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissing them as “noisy” anarchists.
By not calling for a general refusal to serve, the recent wave of letters contrasts with statements released before the war protesting the government’s judicial overhaul plan.
Those statements saw several groups of reservists, including from the IAF, say they would refuse to serve under a regime they no longer viewed as democratic, with some refusing to report for duty when called upon in the months before the war. Nevertheless, when the war broke out on October 7, 2023, reservists, including those who protested the government, enlisted en masse.
Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are holding 59 hostages, including 58 of the 251 abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023.
They include the bodies of at least 35 confirmed dead by the IDF. Hamas released 30 hostages — 20 Israeli civilians, five soldiers and five Thai nationals — and the bodies of eight slain Israeli captives during a ceasefire between January and March.
The terror group freed 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that in the early weeks of the war. In exchange, Israel has freed some 2,000 jailed Palestinian terrorists, security prisoners, and Gazan terror suspects detained during the war.
Eight hostages have been rescued from captivity by troops alive, and the bodies of 41 have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors, and the body of a soldier who was killed in 2014.
The body of another soldier killed in 2014, Lt. Hadar Goldin, is still being held by Hamas and is counted among the 59 hostages.
The Times of Israel Community.