Sunday August 17 Israel stops!
On Thursday, August 7, 2025, following a proposal by the Prime Minister, twenty-two months after the start of a war that was imposed on Israel following the October 7 massacre, the Israeli government voted to expand the war and occupy Gaza.
According to most military analysts, including the 550 members of “Commanders for Israel’s Security” – a group of retired senior officials from the army, Mossad, Shin Bet, and the police, Hamas no longer poses an existential threat, the Israeli government has decided to engage the army in a new military campaign to achieve its war goals and occupy the 25% of the Gaza Strip that it is not under its control.
Although 72% of the population opposes this decision and petitions signed by the heads of major universities and by more than 2,000 artists, doctors, and lawyers … call for an end to this war and the release of hostages in a comprehensive deal, this government, which is backed by only a minority of Israelis on all polls, is committing the entire population to a war which, according to these former security officials, has not been a just or defensive war for over a year. It has become a war of conquest to fulfill the aspirations of the messianic and supremacist ministers of this government.
Despite the devastating images of two hostages recently released by Hamas, their condition, as well as that of the other survivors, is of no interest to the ministers and their supporters, nor is the death of soldiers, famine, and the terrible suffering of Palestinian civilians. They strive to create new settlements in Gaza, as they are doing in the West Bank, and expel the Palestinian population. They are now calling on the Prime Minister to declare the annexation of the entire West Bank.
Eyal Zamir, Netanyahu’s newly appointed Chief of Staff, opposed this decision during the cabinet meeting, stating that it would lead to the death of the hostages. Last Saturday, more than 100,000 Israelis demonstrated in support of their families, who have decided to call for a general strike in the country next Sunday, August 17, to end the war and free the hostages through a single comprehensive deal.
Since then, center and left political parties as hundreds of public and private companies, professional organizations and municipalities in both small and large cities, such as Tel Aviv and Haifa, as well as prominent figures have urged people to join this strike, to paralyze the country’s economy during that day and take to the streets to demonstrate.
We too call on you to support their action and encourage you to send the following message to the Israeli Embassy ([email protected]): “I support the call for a general strike on August 17 launched by the families of hostages in Israel to end the war and free all hostages through an agreement.”
After 22 months, we are well aware of this: extending the Gaza war will have devastating consequences.
Because war has a human cost. The lives of the twenty or so hostages presumed to still be alive are at risk. Not only does military pressure not bring the hostages back, it kills them. Let us remember the six hostages murdered last August when the army closed in on their captors.
The conquest and demilitarization of the Gaza Strip through military occupation will cost the lives of other soldiers and reservists, and will increase the number of wounded and traumatized. Already today, the damage to the physical and mental health of soldiers and their families is immense. There have been 43 suicides since the start of the war. Initial estimates suggest that nearly 12,000 active and reserve soldiers are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Estimates put this figure at over 100,000 within two years.
Among the Palestinian population, Gaza death toll tops 60,000 and more than 1,000 have been killed in the West Bank. Even if, according to Israeli army estimates, there are between 20,000 and 30,000 Hamas members among the latter, tens of thousands of civilians, including a large number of women and children, have been victims of this war. Since March and the end of the ceasefire decided by the Israeli government, hundreds more have died of hunger or disease as a result of the destruction of almost all pre-war infrastructure in Gaza.
War has a financial cost. The occupation of Gaza is estimated at nearly €100 billion per year. This is because the army, which is not trained for this task, will have to provide for the civilian needs of 2 million people (water supply, construction and public works, housing, schools, hospitals, and clinics, etc.). Israel will have full civil responsibility for the inhabitants of the enclave. We are currently seeing all the challenges and issues involved when dealing with food distribution.
War has a security cost. Maintaining a presence in Gaza will require tenfold resources in intelligence and operational forces to ensure security and control of the territory. These resources will no longer be available for other tasks. In terms of security, this is heresy. How can we defend five borders, control five million people in two territories, monitor and be ready to act against more distant enemies with forces that are exhausted after two years of war, young recruits trained in a hurry, and military equipment in need of renovation? General Eyal Zamir has alerted Netanyahu to this issue. It will take months before our army is truly operational again, he warned.
War has a cost for soldiers. The army is currently clearing the ground with D9s (huge armored excavators) to prepare for the creation of new settlements. Tomorrow, it will also have to ensure their security. Where will the military personnel come from? Given that ultra-Orthodox lawmakers are putting enormous pressure to pass a military service exemption for alleged members of their yeshivot.
War has a ethical cost. The images of Palestinian crowds jostling for food aid and of emaciated children, even if some of them are staged, upset a growing number of anti-war demonstrators. They will remain a stain in the history of the country.
War has a cost. The cost of ostracism. Israel is already isolated internationally. The Israeli embassy in Ireland has been closed. There has been a sharp decline in foreign investment, particularly in the high-tech sector. Exports are collapsing. Trade agreements are not being renewed. Many universities are boycotting their Israeli counterparts.
War has a cost for the Jewish people in the diaspora. Anti-Semitism has reached levels not seen since the end of World War II: synagogues set on fire, violent attacks on people wearing kippahs, “rat hunts” of suspected Israelis in Holland and Greece… Anti-Semites/anti-Zionists make no distinction between an Israeli (citizen of Israel) and a Jew who is a citizen of the country in which he lives, all of whom are denounced as responsible for Netanyahu’s policies. This is no less true in France than elsewhere.
Continuing the war today will not bring victory or greater security to Israel. Only 4 of the 205 hostages released alive or dead so far have been rescued by the army. All the others have been released through negotiations. As for the goal of eradicating the last member of Hamas in his last tunnel, this will take, according to the chief of staff himself, two to three years. The only way to defeat Hamas is to establish a political alternative that offers genuine hope for change to the Palestinian people.
The only solution to end this war is an immediate ceasefire agreement with the return of all hostages in a single deal, talks regarding technical governance of the Gaza Strip during the reconstruction phase, with the active participation of moderate Arab countries and Western countries, with a view to creating a Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel.
This is the only possible solution to prevent Israel from collapsing into obscurantism and endless war.
The signatories of this declaration support the Israelis’ struggle to defend their democracy and the two-state solution. They also support their call for help from the European Union, and France in particular, to bring Prime Minister Netanyahu back to a more reasonable policy: an end to hostilities in Gaza and a negotiated agreement for the release of all hostages.
Le Collectif Défendre la Démocratie Israélienne, La Paix Maintenant, JCall, Centre Medem Arbeter-Ring
