The news on September 1st that the bodies of six hostages had been repatriated from Gaza prompted the largest protests across Israel since the war began on October 7th. The fate of 250 hostages whom Hamas captured that day has remained throughout the conflict the issue most likely to bring Israelis out onto the streets in protest against their government. Even the country’s trade-union federation, which usually stays out of politics, called for a general strike.
Bodies of hostages have been located in Gaza before, but this time was different. Forensic evidence points to the six having survived over 300 days in captivity until being executed by their captors shortly before they were found. The possibility that some might have been freed alive as part of a ceasefire agreement with Hamas stoked anger towards Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu. He has been blocking such a deal, despite Israel’s security chiefs broadly favouring one.
Over 40,000 Gazans have been killed in the war, according to Hamas authorities. In Israel the death toll is over 1,600. But the anger most Israelis feel towards their government is driven by its failure to rescue the hostages. Some 101 remain in Gaza, though Israel believes a third of them are already dead. A majority of Israelis keenly support a ceasefire because it might bring the rest of the hostages home.
On a political plane, the issue of the hostages has rallied a divided opposition which shares a loathing for Mr Netanyahu’s government but has conflicting positions over the war in Gaza. “Every Israeli feels the hostages are part of their family, even a limb in their body,” says Dahlia Scheindlin, a pollster. In the current discourse, she continues, “ending the war for its own sake is barely mentioned”.
For the beleaguered Israeli left, the prevalence of such attitudes means they have to temper calls for an end to the war and efforts to draw Israelis’ attention to the carnage among Palestinians. For now, says Noam Davidov, a student and left-wing activist, the priority is a ceasefire, and so “the focus has to be on the hostages”.■
Sign up to the Middle East Dispatch, a weekly newsletter that keeps you in the loop on a fascinating, complex and consequential part of the world.