A small group of reserve soldiers from the elite military intelligence unit in Israel joined an appeal to the immediate return of the hostages in Gaza, even if this requires the direct party to the war. The condition is a sign of the increasing protest movement after more than 18 months of conflict.
The general message, which includes more than 250 signatures, states that the war “currently serves political and personal interests mainly, not security interests.”
The authors wrote: “The continuation of the war does not contribute to any of the declared goals and will lead to the death of the hostages, the Defense Forces in Israel (IDF) and the innocent.”
The letter was written by the reserve soldiers and ancient fighters in unit 8200, the largest military intelligence unit in Israel. She also criticizes the plans of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the defeat of Hamas and the return of the 59 hostages in Gaza.
To continue power, the Prime Minister relies on supporting the partnership of the advanced parties of the parties who threatened to leave the government if the war ends.
The perpetrators wrote: “The government did not bear the responsibility of the catastrophe and does not recognize that it has no plan or solution to the crisis.” ))
S. A new public protest arises One day after hundreds of old warriors and the reserve forces in the Air Force deployed a similar speech in the main newspapers of Israel, saying that “the war is mainly working on political and personal interests, not security interests.”
Israel has a relatively small permanent army, but it has a much larger backup body, which depends on long periods of conflict. The increasing protest movement among the reserve soldiers can affect the ability of the Israeli Defense Forces to maintain a long campaign in Gaza.
Although the two letters criticize the continuity of the war, the two sites did not reject the service.
Hours after the first message was issued on Thursday (11), the Israeli army announced that it had refused the air reserve soldiers who signed the document and was analyzing the signatures to verify their number who are still belonging to the activists. The Israeli Defense Army officer stated that most of the sites are not active reserve soldiers.
The commander of the Israeli Air Force, the Tomer Barr, criticized the message in his own statement, which was published on Friday (12).
“The messages that appear in the advertisement express the lack of confidence and cohesion of damage within the force,” Barr wrote. “Such a publication has no place during the war, while the Israeli Defense Army soldiers and leaders are risking their lives.”
“Foreign money”
Netanyahu criticized the new protest speech and tried to photograph the authors as a non -relevant minority.
“They have been written by a small group of corrupt apples, run by organizations funded by foreign funds, which have one goal – to overthrow the right government,” he said. Benjamin Netanyahu In a statement, without providing any evidence of their allegations of foreign influence.
However, Netanyahu’s statement acknowledged that the protest speeches were coming from various parts of the armed forces, with a similar possible speech from the navy. He said, “Once again, those messages themselves: once on behalf of the pilots, again on behalf of the naval graduates and in other names with different names,” he said.
The Prime Minister tried to reduce the importance of messages, although recent opinion polls show that nearly 70 % of the Israeli public supports the end of the war to liberate the remaining hostages.
“This is not a trend. This is not a flow,” he said.
The procedure to suppress the general protest seems to have the purpose of containing the increasing discontent between the reserve soldiers and avoiding the repetition of 2023, when waves of reserve soldiers said they would refuse to protest against Netanyahu’s judicial reform efforts.
Each of these reserve soldiers ended up responding to what was received after the Israeli attack on October 7, but this unit during the war began to weaken as the conflict continues.
