Protests against the Gaza war in Sakhnin.
Nagham Zbeedat writes in Haaretz on 30 July 2025:
In the face of Gaza’s starvation, displacement and daily death there is no room for diluted messaging. What we need now – urgently – are protests led by youth with one clear and entirely unapologetic demand: End the war and stop the genocide in Gaza.
Over 10,000 people protested in Sakhnin, an Arab city in northern Israel, last week against the war in Gaza and the starvation of Palestinians. There was a large police presence at the main protest ceremony and also at the march from the city’s main mosque toward city hall. And still, walking through the masses of people in Sakhnin, I heard more than once people complaining of how “lame” the protest felt. They admitted that the lack of confrontation with the police made it feel as though the protests were deprived of its goal. Despite the significant turnout, some felt they were being “fooled” into believing that they’re protesting, that they were merely blowing off steam rather than expressing outrage and frustration over the crimes committed in Gaza.
The day before, police declared an anti-war protest in Haifa illegal and arrested at least 24 demonstrators. The protesters, carrying signs calling for an end to the Gaza war, were detained minutes after the demonstration began. Police claimed the rally was illegal because the protest “could disrupt public order.” Officers used force during the arrests, even tearing up protest signs.
A similar protest took place simultaneously in Tel Aviv, though speeches there did not mention the hunger crisis in Gaza, even if some demonstrators held signs addressing the issue. Instead, organizations and local movements in Israel, and specifically in places like Tel Aviv, continue to hold protests calling the hostages to be freed or for the fall of the Netanyahu government or even for coexistence and shared civil rights for both Arabs and Jews inside Israel. These demands, despite being well–intended, feel painfully out of touch with the gravity of what’s unfolding in Gaza.
Each of the protests in Sakhnin, Haifa and Tel Aviv stand as living metaphors for the inner-workings of Israeli society.
Sakhnin is a fully Arab city. It has fiercely preserved its cultural identity despite decades of state marginalization against the Palestinian citizens of Israel. Sakhnin became a national symbol of resistance during Land Day in 1976, when state land confiscations sparked mass protests among Arab citizens resulting in a deadly crackdown. The whole episode highlighted the growing rift between the Palestinian population and state policies. This is where protests among Arabs get rowdy and this is where clear calls for the end of the genocide are currently heard – but this is also where an echo chamber on these issues already exists.
Haifa, on the other hand, experienced mass expulsion during the Nakba of 1948. While it has since become a “mixed city” where Arabs and Jews live side by side, they are rarely treated as equals. The remnants of Haifa’s Palestinian past often feel subdued beneath layers of Israeli identity. And so too was its protest this past week, subdued by over policing bent on keeping the Palestinian population docile to ensure Jewish Israelis feel safe.
Tel Aviv represents a more complete transformation. What was a Jewish neighborhood built on the outskirts of Arab Jaffa, the city grew rapidly after 1948 and engulfed Jaffa entirely. Here, the protests are dominated by neutral slogans and abstract ideals. But it’s not a time to talk about civil equality inside Israel. Over two million people in Gaza are being starved, bombed and buried under rubble. These are not “humanitarian concerns” – they are crimes against humanity, and protests, especially those in the heartland of Jewish Israel must recognize them as such.
This is why protests must shift from symbolic Arab towns like Sakhnin to cities like Haifa, and on to Tel Aviv, to deliberately disrupt the comfort of mainstream Israeli society – to make them confront the crimes committed in their name.
When we protest in Arab towns, it becomes easy to contain, to ignore and pacify. But if the thousands that joined the protest in Sakhnin had been in Haifa a day earlier, or in Tel Aviv a day later, Israeli society at large would be forced to confront the truth it is refusing to hear: the war on Gaza must stop now.
No matter how the Israeli media tries to fragment us as “Israeli Arabs,” or distance us from our people with walls, with checkpoints and with differently colored documents, the war only reinforces what we already know deep down in our bones: We are Palestinian, even if we live in and are citizens of Israel. Our identity is inseparable from their struggle for justice, freedom and dignity.
The recent protests are powerful because of who shows up. Women, queer activists and people from all backgrounds; religious and secular, stand side by side, are refusing to be boxed into the narrow images Israel tries to project about our community. For too long, Palestinians inside Israel have been portrayed as one rigid, conservative mold – stripped of complexity, dynamism or resistance. These protests break that narrative. And so too, must they break the narrative of where Palestinian voices are heard. We must be heard in Sakhnin, in Haifa, in Tel Aviv, in the Knesset, and yes, in Gaza too.
The scene of Palestinian women leading protests, chanting for freedom and justice and the visible presence of LGBTQ+ protesters in these demonstrations, embraced rather than pushed aside, is a reminder that the fight against colonialism, patriarchy and military occupation are all part of the same struggle. When we break our silence, we’re not just defying the state – we’re defying every system that disciplines our identity and silences our voices.
What this moment demands is courage, clarity and disobedience. The youth must lead, not with compromise, but with conviction. We cannot be polite while people starve. We cannot ask for equality in a system that thrives on apartheid. And we cannot remain quiet while our people are erased, one airstrike at a time.
This is not the time to obey, this is the time to rise.
This article is reproduced in its entirety