Israelis Against Genocide: The Protests The Media Won’t Show

Recently, roughly half a million Israelis protested in Tel Aviv against their government and military’s actions in Gaza. But people wonder if Israelis are protesting for an end to the siege on Gaza only to see their hostages returned, or do they want to see an end to the genocide?

The answer is: both.

There are Israelis against the genocide, despite popular claims and harmful rhetoric online that they are all evil.

Of course there are those whose primary concern is to see their hostages returned, and those who are more focused on demanding an end to the assault in Gaza. The Israeli military’s latest military operation in Gaza to completely seize and occupy Gaza City may be a death sentence for the Israeli hostages still in captivity, and ending the assault would be in their best interests, too.

Mainstream media like The Guardian, Reuters and BBC have framed the August protests in Israel as primarily for a hostage deal, quoting protestors about the hostages and showing images of signs saying “bring them home” rather than the signs of “end the genocide” and quotes from anti-genocide protestors.

Public discourse on social media can frame the protests as being entirely self-serving, like they do not care one way or the other if Palestinians survive as long as they get the hostages back. Part of this framework is due to the limited and one-sided media coverage.

Presenting the protests this way relies on several logical fallacies:

• One-Sided Fallacy: Emphasizing one motive—hostages—while ignoring anti-genocide activism.
• Cherry-Picking: Highlighting selective signs and quotes while omitting contradictory evidence.
• Confirmation Bias: Favoring information that supports the belief that Israelis don’t care about Palestinians, while disregarding evidence to the contrary.

Are there people who only care about the hostages? Yes, but that ignores hundreds of thousands of others who have protested against the siege and violence for years.

Media outlets aren’t showing the other angle of the raw footage taken on the ground at the protests. To see the full picture, we must turn to social media like Instagram and Facebook where organizations like Breaking the Silence, Voices Against War, and Refuser Solidarity Network are posting the anti-genocide angle. There are also individuals documenting the protests, like Jess Flom, a freelance photographer in Jerusalem regularly posting incredible photos from the protests.

A week after Benjamin Netanyahu announced the full-scale ground invasion and occupation, roughly 500,000 Israelis in Tel Aviv protested Netanyahu’s war, with smaller protests nationwide. This was the largest protest since October 2023, and it is not the only one. Israelis have been protesting in smaller—but still significant—numbers the entire time.

Protestors chanted, “Don’t say we didn’t know, genocide is happening in our name,” while holding signs that read “Palestinian Lives Matter; Stop the Slaughter!”

Many hold posters of emaciated babies and children, starved to the brink of death because of the months-long blockade of humanitarian aid and food. The protestors carry flour sacks and bundles of white sheet wrapped up to symbolize a dead child.

Silent protestors hold vigils at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, carrying signs with the photos and information about dead children. People sit in silence in the streets with posters that say “Stop the genocide” and they are berated and even attacked by other Israelis for it.

It’s hard to believe that the Israelis are only interested in saving the hostages as they hold signs of dead Palestinians and yell, “Every child is innocent!”

Protestors called out an organization meant to help people by calling it the “Gaza Hunger Foundation.” It is actually called The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a joint American-Israeli organization, formed early in 2025 to facilitate the distribution of aid to civilians in Gaza. Johnnie Moore, the Executive Chairman of the GHF, was a former Trump campaign advisor, and the Executive Director is John Acree, an American Evangelical. Despite this new organization, Israel has blocked vital aid and food from reaching Gaza. The few trucks they may let in, or the airdrops, are not even a drop in the bucket to sustain the population, and civilians going to the aid distribution locations have been killed repeatedly. Gaza has been intentionally starved for months, they’re facing extreme famine, and people are dying of starvation.

Activists chanted, “GHF, you can’t hide, you’re complicit in genocide! John Acree, shame on you, Gaza’s hunger is caused by you!” Posters read “Dismantle Genocide Hunger Foundation” and “GHF = the US-Israel Genocide Machine.”

They block the roads in Tel Aviv, they’re violently apprehended and beaten by police for using their right to protest.

Alon-Lee Green’s video was posted on the social media pages of a grassroots movement of Israelis who stand in solidarity with Palestinians called Standing Together; he filmed the protest behind him while saying:

“We will not agree to starvation of people, we will not agree to killing children! This is done by our government, in our name! We must take the responsibility, as a society we must choose: do we celebrate death? Do we celebrate the killing of children? Or do we wake up and fight it because the fascist government in our country is leading people to die of starvation, children to be killed. We cannot agree with that!”

So, are there Israelis only interested in their own safety, still disillusioned with Israel’s propaganda? Yes. But are there also hundreds of thousands, if not millions that we are not seeing on the media who are protesting their government’s genocide of Palestinians? Also, yes.

There have always been Israelis who stand in solidarity with Palestinians, including those who served in the Israeli military and broke free from the propaganda.

And, in the last two years, about 100,000 Israelis have refused to serve the mandatory draft or being called up in the reserves. Some have refused because they don’t want to get injured or die for Israel, some because they don’t agree with the war, and others because they will not participate in a genocide. There will always be selfish reasons, but that doesn’t erase the good intentions.

A recent poll of 1,005 Jewish Israelis revealed that 82% of those surveyed support the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, with 47% approving methods such as killing all civilians of their “enemies.” While that amount of people approving war crimes is horrendous, it doesn’t mean that 100% of Israelis want to see Palestinians annihilated.

Those who have been speaking out for decades have received backlash and been silenced, but the only way to move forward is to recognize that morality is not completely dead. Jewish Israelis who protest their government and military should be welcomed to the resistance, not alienated, or generalized. Not only that, but we should embrace those who were once in the Israeli military and have now changed their ideology and protest their own military. People are complex, ideologies change, and anti-genocide Israelis have always played a key role in the Palestinian resistance.