Demonstrators wave Israeli flags during a protest marking nine months since the start of the war and calling for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip by the Hamas militant group, in Tel Aviv, Israel, on July 7, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Marking nine months since the war in Gaza started, Israeli protesters blocked highways across the country on July 7, calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to step down and pushing for a ceasefire that could bring back the hostages held by Hamas.

The demonstrations come as international mediators have renewed efforts to broker a deal. Hamas over the weekend appeared to have dropped a key demand for an Israeli commitment to end the war, according to Egyptian and Hamas officials who spoke to The Associated Press.

Also read | Israeli cabinet to consider Hamas ceasefire proposal: source

The current war followed after the Palestinian militant group carried out a cross-border attack on Oct. 7, saw 1,200 people killed and 250 others taken hostage. A retaliatory Israeli air and ground offensive has killed over 38,000 Palestinians, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.

Sunday’s “Day of Disruption” started at 6:29 A.M., the moment that Hamas militants launched the first rockets toward Israel in October. Protesters blocked main roads and demonstrated outside of the homes of members of Israel’s parliament.

Near the border with Gaza, Israeli protestors released 1,500 black and yellow balloons to symbolize those who were killed and abducted.

Hannah Golan said she came to protest the “devastating abandonment of our communities by our government.” She added: “It’s nine months today, to this black day, and still nobody in our government takes responsibility.”

About 120 hostages remain captive after more than 100 hostages were released as part of a November cease-fire deal. Israel has already concluded that more than 40 of the remaining hostages are dead, and fears spread the number may grow as the war drags on.

The Israeli Prime Minister had previously said while he was open to pausing the war as part of a hostage deal, Israel would press on until it reached its goals of destroying Hamas’ military and governing capabilities and bringing home all those held captive by Hamas.

Meanwhile, fighting in Gaza continued, with nine Palestinians reported dead from Israeli strikes overnight and into the early hours of Sunday.

Six Palestinians were killed in central Gaza after a strike hit a house in the town of Zawaida, according to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. Another Israeli airstrike early Sunday hit a house west of Gaza City, killing another three people, the strip’s Hamas-linked civil defense said.

The Gaza Health Ministry said Saturday an Israeli airstrike killed at least 16 people and wounded at least 50 others in a school-turned-shelter in the Nuseirat refugee camp. The Israeli military said they were targeting Hamas militants and had taken “numerous steps” to reduce civilian casualties.

Also Sunday morning, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said it launched dozens of projectiles toward northern Israel in the north, targeting areas more than 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border, deeper than most launches.

A 28-year-old Israeli man was seriously wounded in Kfar Zeitim, a small town near the city of Tiberias, Israel’s national rescue service reported.

The barrage came after the Israeli military said in a statement an airstrike targeted a car and killed an engineer in Hezbollah’s air defense unit Saturday. Hezbollah confirmed al-Attar’s death but did not give information on his position.

Near-daily clashes between Hezbollah and Israeli forces over the past nine months have threatened to turn into an all-out regional war and have catastrophic consequences for people on both sides of the border.

Mediators from the United States, Egypt and Qatar have intensified their efforts in the past week to reach an agreement.

The compromise on Saturday by Hamas could deliver the first pause in fighting since November and set the stage for further talks, though all sides still warned that a deal is not yet guaranteed.

Washington’s phased deal would start with a “full and complete” six-week cease-fire during which older, sick and female hostages would be released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. During those 42 days, Israeli forces would withdraw from densely populated areas of Gaza and allow the return of displaced people to their homes in northern Gaza, the officials said.

War-weary Palestinians in the Gaza Strip appeared pessimistic about the possibility of reaching a cease-fire as the Israel-Hamas war marked nine months on Sunday.

“We have lived nine months of suffering,” Heba Radi, a displaced Palestinian woman, told the AP. “The cease-fire has become a distant dream,”

The mother of six children spoke from her tent in the central city of Deir al-Balah where she sheltered after they fled their home in Gaza City.

“Every day, we tell ourselves tomorrow (there will be a cease-fire),” she said, “and tomorrow will be better. And when tomorrow comes, they say (the negotiations) were postponed.”

Zakia Hasanein is an 80-year-old Palestinian woman, who also sheltered in Deir al-Balah, appealed to Netanyahu and Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh to agree on a cease-fire, saying they “lived like the dead.”

The Israel-Hamas war has caused widespread damage in Gaza. Israeli restrictions, ongoing fighting and the breakdown of law and order have curtailed humanitarian aid efforts, causing widespread hunger and sparking fears of famine. The top U.N. court has concluded there is a “plausible risk of genocide” in Gaza — a charge Israel strongly denies.

Members of Israeli security forces stand guard next to protesters during a demonstration against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, near the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, in Jerusalem on June 17, 2024
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Anti-government protesters converged on Jerusalem on June 17, calling for new elections in an effort to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who once again sits atop one of the most right-wing coalitions in Israel’s history.

A wartime unity government fell apart a week ago when two centrist former generals, Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, quit, leaving Netanyahu dependent on ultra-Orthodox and far-right partners. Their hardline agenda caused a major rift in Israeli society even before Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault sparked the war in Gaza.

The often weekly demonstrations have yet to change the political landscape, and Mr. Netanyahu still controls a stable majority in parliament.

Following the departures of Mr. Gantz and Mr. Eisenkot, opposition groups declared a week of street protests that include blocking highways and mass demonstrations.

By sundown, a crowd of thousands had gathered outside the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, and planned to march to Netanyahu’s private home in the city.

Many waved Israeli flags. Others carried signs criticizing Mr. Netanyahu’s handling of pivotal issues, like promoting a divisive military draft bill that exempts ultra-Orthodox Jews from otherwise mandatory service, as well as his handling of the war with Hamas in Gaza and fighting with Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

“The healing process for the country of Israel, it starts here. After last week when Benny Gantz and Eisenkot left the coalition, we are continuing this process and hopefully this government will resign soon,” said protestor Oren Shvill.

Jerusalem:

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Houdini of Israeli politics and its longest serving prime minister, has been written off many times before.

But with thousands of protesters on the streets every night this week demanding his resignation, and growing anger at his handling of the war in Gaza, many wonder how long the veteran political escapologist can survive.

The usually bullish Netanyahu, 74, appears both physically and politically fragile.

Deeply unpopular — no more than four percent of Israelis trust him, according to one poll late last year — the war in Gaza is taking its toll on the man Israelis call Bibi.

Visibly frail and sallow, he was short-tempered and distracted during a television speech Saturday which his former minister and Likud colleague Limor Livnat called “catastrophic”.

The left-wing daily Haaretz said he looked “like a frightened tyrant”.

Netanyahu was even more gaunt when he left hospital in Jerusalem Tuesday after a hernia operation only to have to face the ire of the international community after an Israeli strike killed seven aid workers for a US-based group in Gaza.

“It happens in war,” Netanyahu said with a tact which may not have been appreciated in the White House, which said it was “heartbroken” at the deaths.

“Netanyahu has been buried politically many times before and bounced back,” said Emmanuel Navon, a former Likud member and political science professor.

“But this time is different because of October 7. It is not the same country. It’s over for Bibi.

“He is 74, doesn’t do any exercise, has a very hard job and he had a pacemaker put in six months ago.”

– Blamed for October 7 ‘disaster’ –

But Navon doubts Netanyahu will be forced from office by the new wave of mass street protests despite the fury of the hostages’ families.

Einav Zangauker, the mother of one of the 134 still held in Gaza, branded him a “pharaoh, a slayer of first-borns” at Tuesday night’s rally outside parliament in Jerusalem, the fourth consecutive night of protests.

They have seen hostage families uniting with anti-government demonstrators who spent nine months on the streets last year trying to stop controversial judicial reforms pushed by Netanyahu’s far-right allies.

The “disaster” of October 7 would have killed off any other politician. But Navon compared Netanyahu’s hold over the ruling Likud party to Donald Trump’s over US Republicans.

“Likud lawmakers are petrified to be penalised in the next primaries by the ‘Trio’ — Bibi, his wife and his son who decide everything,” said the professor at Tel Aviv University.

“Peoples’ political lives depend on him. He has surfed populism, his candidates now tend to be conspiracy theory wackos. It is not the same party of 20 years ago.”

– Divide and rule –

With his coalition reeling from crisis to crisis, enemies seem to be circling as never before around the leader of Israel’s most right-wing government ever.

Prosecutors are pushing ahead with a corruption trial against him despite the war, and protesters tried to break through police barriers to get to his home on Tuesday for the second time in four days.

Even his defence minister, Likud stalwart Yoav Gallant, is defying him over the deeply divisive issue of ultra-Orthodox Jews escaping compulsory military service even as the war in Gaza rages and another looms with Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Netanyahu has long relied on the support of religious parties to govern.

“Excusing a whole community when the military needs so much more manpower is unforgivable,” General Reuven Benkler told AFP at an anti-government rally Monday.

The 65-year-old came out of retirement to serve in the north after the Hamas attack which resulted in 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 32,916 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

Benkler said the “hostages will not come home while Bibi is still in power”, adding that Netanyahu was dragging out the war in Gaza to prolong his rule — a claim endlessly repeated on the protests.

“He doesn’t give a damn about anyone else apart from himself.”

Netanyahu’s three-decade hold over Israeli politics was based on divide and rule, Navon said. And his claim that only he could keep the country safe, October 7 shattered that.

His promise of elections in 2026 was “delusional”, the analyst said. “But protesters demands for them now are also unrealistic. The end of the year when the war has been won in Gaza and the north is more likely,” he added.

On Tuesday night, hostage mother Zangauker accused Netanyahu of letting Israel’s guard fall, declaring at a mass protest to thunderous cheers: “It’s all your fault — 240 were kidnapped on your watch.”

“You nurtured and raised Hamas,” she added, and yet “you call us traitors (for protesting during a war) when you are the traitor.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)