‘You don’t gain victory over the bodies of children’: Israelis march against starvation, war in Gaza

People attend a protest organized by Standing Together in Tel Aviv on 21 July 2025

Linda Dayan reports in Haaretz on 23 July 2025:

On Tuesday evening in Tel Aviv, a few hundred people gathered at Habima Square in the city center, holding meter-by-meter photos of emaciated children from Gaza and sacks of flour. A young woman chanted into a megaphone, “You don’t gain victory over the bodies of children,” and the crowd repeated her. “We will fight with all our might against starvation in our name!”

They were about to embark on a march against the images they had seen and stories they had heard from Gaza – even if the Israeli media rarely showed them – of hunger, the killing of civilians and the occupation of the Palestinian territories. It was organized by Standing Together, a Jewish-Arab coexistence organization that was among the first of the Israeli groups to organize protests for a cease-fire in Gaza.

“We cannot believe that we need to march against starvation of children and innocent people,” Alon-Lee Green, co-director of the organization, told Haaretz. He added that at the same time, Israelis are going through an awakening of sorts. “They’re understanding that this is the reality, that it’s not a [fake] campaign as some journalist or politicians say. There is starvation. A lot of these Israelis are asking, ‘okay, so I know there is a dire situation there. What do I do now?’ This is our attempt to call on people to do something.”

He says that a turning point for many was the collapse of the cease-fire in March. “People asked, ‘why are we going back to Gaza? Why are we sending our children to kill and be killed?” he said. “People understand [now] that it’s killing for the sake of killing, that it’s starvation for the sake of starvation. And yes, that what we do right now in Gaza is annihilation as a policy.”

On the side, Ghadeer Hani, a member of Standing Together’s leadership board, was holding a picture of the skeletal 5-year-old Osama al-Raqab, a Gazan child with cystic fibrosis whose family could not access the enzyme tablets he needs to digest food, or protein to nourish him, since the start of the war. His photos have circulated widely.

“Sadly, the Israeli media doesn’t cover what’s going on in Gaza, doesn’t show the difficult pictures, doesn’t show the starvation there,” she said. “I came with a message to Jews, to tell them that the Jews who went through the horrors of the Holocaust absolutely must stand up and oppose the horrors going on in Gaza.”

She added that she mourned the losses of October 7 – including of her friend Vivian Silver – “but I can’t stay silent about what’s happening. I can hold that complexity. I come with the message that humanity comes first.”

A young English-speaking passerby in work-out clothes popped out her earbud and asked a couple of young women what the protest is about. A protester responded that it’s against the starvation and killing in Gaza. The woman who asked her glanced at the pictures, seeming genuinely surprised. “Oh wow,” she said. “That’s happening now?” Carmel invited her to join the march, but the young woman declined.

The exchange is “Proof that you can close your eyes and not see the horrors that are happening in Gaza,” said the protester – an Israeli-American named Carmel. “It shocked me how much people don’t know.”

Rula Daoud, the co-director of the organization, addressed the crowd before the march: “The path that we’re taking is one toward peace, one of building anew, something different. I promised this to myself, because I know that all of us in this place deserve much better than what we’re getting,” she said.

“It is not normal that people have to run and fight and die to find a bag of flour. It is not normal that people have to pay more than 1,500 shekels for a bag of food. It is not normal for mothers to doom children to this life where they must send them, at the age of 18, to take a weapon, to enter a strip with two million people in one big prison, to kill and be killed. Nothing in the reality we have now is normal!” she shouted. “We cannot continue to stay silent about the horrors in Gaza. We can’t stay silent about the starvation in Gaza… and we cannot continue to go on like nothing is happening.”

Green added, “As Israelis, when they tell us that this is for our safety, how are we supposed to feel? When they tell us that very soon, this’ll bring back the hostages – but they’ve been saying that for two years – how are we supposed to feel? when they tell us that we have no choice but to send our kids to carry out these war crimes, these crimes against humanity, how are we supposed to feel?”

He added, “All I know is that we have no option but to oppose it, to intensify our struggle against it, to show this reality to everyone in Israel.” This, he said, includes refusing to perform military service in Gaza. “Every soldier who goes into Gaza, no matter their role, is a party to war crimes.” He encouraged Israelis to protest, to discuss the suffering of Gazans at the Friday night dinner table and to make demands of their elected officials. He singled out the center-left parties: “I call on the Democrats, and Yesh Atid, and Benny Gantz – join the fight! talk about what’s happening in Gaza!”

As the march began, participants chanted “starving children is a war crime,” “There are no explanations or excuses for the starving of children,” and “We don’t want Netzarim” – a corridor in Gaza that the government considers a strategic asset – “stop the bombing!” At the bars lining the street, people stared and took pictures. Migrant workers from India filmed the commotion. From an apartment overlooking the street, an older woman leaned out the window, banging together pan lids to the rhythm of the protest drums.

The march caught one woman on her way home from work by surprise. “It’s hard for me to see something like this,” she said. “Our soldiers are fighting for this land, and to see this thing before your eyes – I feel like it isn’t right to have a protest like this.”  Another, a local, smoked a cigarette as she watched the protest go by. “I didn’t know it was happening, but I identify with it,” she said. “But sadly, I’m not sure if it helps that much. We’ve had protests for two years now, and nobody seems to be paying attention.”

The march snaked toward the Tel Aviv Cinematheque, not terribly far from its starting point. One man, who met the protest there, seemed to be paying attention. He had brought a megaphone louder than Standing Together’s sound system, and was shouting over the brief speeches. “Shame! Pathetic!” he cried. “Come, let’s unite against this Nazi enemy! We have 56 brothers and sisters in the basements there, where is your protest for them?” Police directed the Gaza marchers away from approaching him.

“Were starving them? Nobody wants to see a starving child, that’s why we’re sending humanitarian aid! My brother has been in Gaza for 400 days, there’s no starvation! If anyone is preventing its distribution it’s Hamas!” he called.

But soon he, too, was drowned out by call-and-response chants of “Every child is a civilian!” As the rally wound down and the man kept shouting, a counter-counter protest formed. A Gaza protester grabbed a megaphone and started, half-jokingly, to sing “Oseh Shalom,” a Jewish prayer for peace, in the man’s direction.

“Make peace for us, make peace for us, and all of Israel,” the protester sang. “And for Gaza, and the rest of the Middle East!” others added to the hymn.

This article is reproduced in its entirety