Israelis and the war in Gaza

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0:50Hello, I'm Emma Vardy. Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service. In BBC OS conversations, we bring people together to share their perspectives on global events. The week began with a group of around 600 retired Israeli security officials calling for an end to the war in Gaza. It ended with the Israeli cabinet approving plans for a major expansion of military operations. The aim? To defeat Hamas and return the hostages. The decision has been criticised by foreign governments, the United Nations and even the country's own military leadership. And as we record this programme on Friday lunchtime here in London, protesters in Israel have been taking to the streets to oppose the decision.

1:38Israel launched its military assault on Gaza following the Hamas attack in October 2023, in which some 1 ,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage. The Hamas-run health ministry says more than 61 ,000 people have been killed in Gaza and last time on BBC OS Conversations, we heard from people in the territory about the desperate shortage of food. In this edition, in conversations recorded over the past week before the Israeli cabinet meeting, we're going to be hearing from people in Israel. We bring together the families of two hostages who were killed by Hamas. Later, three rabbis grappling with a solution to the conflict.

2:20First, though, two young people with different perspectives on the fighting. Israel requires most citizens over the age of 18 to do military service in the Israel Defence Forces, the IDF. Once enlisted, men are expected to serve for a minimum of 32 months and women for a minimum of 24. 18-year-old David is due to join the IDF later this year. We brought him together in conversation with Abigail, who's 17 and has decided not to take part in military service. The consequences could be a term in prison. We've changed their names to protect them and their families. My colleague Mark Lowen began by asking David how he feels about joining the IDF.

3:02I've been waiting for it a long time. I've been training a lot. I'm nervous, afraid, but excited as well. I am a pacifist and I believe that we should always strive for peace. And personally, I will not serve in the system that attacks people and groups as much as we do. And I believe that the way to get to peace is not by attacking the other side, it's by acknowledging their pain and working with agreements and discussions. I agree the way to peace isn't through war, but sometimes war is necessary. If we didn't have an army, if Israel didn't have an army, there wouldn't be an Israel. There are so many countries surrounding us that hope for the destruction of Israel, and they say it publicly.

3:50Without our army, we would be long gone. Of course, but I think that besides protection, the army does other stuff that aren't necessary to protect Israel. And I think that if the army would have focused only on protection and would have been more human to the other side and more considerate of the people, of their lives, of their rights as human beings, of seeing them exactly worse as our lives, then I would have probably go to the army. But I think that's not the situation right now. Why are you saying that? What exactly are we doing that you believe isn't meant for peace or for protection? I think that we're treating the other side, the Palestinian lives, not as equally as ours.

4:34We are not considerate to their rights as human beings. Right now, the people there are starving, are suffering. I mean, I think that the way that we fight in Gaza and just not acknowledging their rights as human beings and letting them starve and live in horrible conditions is not right, especially not as a democratic country. I actually agree. I think no one should be starving. And it's terrible. It's horrible. But we didn't start this war. It started by homicide of almost 1 ,500. It was a bit higher than that death of citizens. And before the 7th of October, we used to pay a lot of money and give lots of resources to the Gaza people, to Hamas.

5:24And we didn't want war. Only after what happened, we realized that that's the only way. Do you believe in this war that you are going to fight for? Yes, I do. I don't like the situation. I think it's horrible that soldiers like 18-year-old and 19-year-old people are dying. I think it's horrible that there are citizens of Gaza that are dying. And I think it's horrible that there are hostages in Gaza that are starving and bodies that are kept away from families in Israel. It's horrible for all sides, but I think it's still necessary, at least until we have our hostages back. And I think it's necessary to make sure that it won't happen again.

6:08And this is a cause that you are willing to risk your life for? Yeah, of course. The protection of Israel, of course. Abigail, what has been the reaction of your friends, of your family, to your decision not to serve? Actually, my family is very supportive. My mother never wanted me to live in a reality where I have to serve in the military and to be a property of the IDF. My father thinks it's very important for me to serve, especially since it's a very vital experience. I think my father realized that I'm very stubborn in my decision making and I think he trusts me. But with my friends, it's more complicated.

6:50As David said, everybody says if the IDF weren't here, then I wouldn't have been here. And some people have said to me that if I don't want to serve in the military, then I shouldn't live here, that I need to go someplace else, and that I cannot call this place a home. I believe that people react so harshly is because many people are really hurt from the war. I don't know one person that hasn't lost a friend or a brother or a friend of a friend or a father. Like in Israel, there's not one person that doesn't know a dead person and a young soldier that died. That's why people react like what you said, because they have a lot of emotion behind it.

7:35It's not OK. And I don't support such like reactions. And I don't believe everyone reacts that way. But I can understand why they do. Yes, of course I understand. And I think that's the main problem of the conflict of the situation here in the Middle East, that everything is so linked to so much pain and suffering that the feelings of people are so radical. It's like a cycle that never ends. Yes, exactly. They will harm us. We can't just stand by, so we have to counteract. eventually let's say today the kids that grow up in gaza they will grow up and they will hate israel and they will hurt israel and we will again have to react and i hope one day we'll find a way to figure it out yes i completely agree with you but then i ask myself don't you want to end this cycle and then you're going to the front and fighting and killing people and actually sacrificing your life to the cycle that never ends.

8:40How do you see that happening? In this scenario, I know there's a Hamas is in Gaza and I know what he's capable of. And I think I should sacrifice the possibility that it will cause hatred to stop them and to make sure at least for the next 10 years, there won't be such a big threat. And I can say, I want to say one more thing. My brother now is actually in Gaza. He's a soldier there. And I know from him they have lots of stuff they do in order to make the harm to citizens as small as possible. I think that we are the furthest we've ever been from finding peace or at least something close to that.

9:26And the only way to get close to that is to acknowledge the other side and their pain and their right as human beings. And right now, it's not even close to that. So I am very afraid to live here and to have family here. I think that the future is not bright at all. And that's why I'm fighting for change. I think hope is a dream. I'm not sure peace is a dream. I'm not sure it will be possible because of this specific war. And I dream of an Israel that's living peacefully with its neighbors. not only the Palestinians with all its neighbors I hope for the day that maybe when I'm older I could travel to Iran and Lebanon I love to hike and travel so I see like in Google Maps many beautiful sights in those countries I'm not sure this is the war that will make that but I know this war will give a couple years of the feeling of safety would it be true?

10:31I'm not sure you never know. That's a dream. Teenagers David and Abigail in Israel. I'm Emma Vardy and this is BBC OS Conversations from the BBC World Service.

10:48Before Achilles found glory and Odysseus eventually found his way home, someone had to compose the Iliad and Odyssey. But was their credited author, Homer, even real? Hi, I'm Greg Jenner, host of You're Dead to Me the comedy show that takes history seriously and we are travelling back to 8th century BCE to trace the origins of the Iliad and Odyssey epic poems that became backbones of Western literature Join me and my fantastic guests as we unpack the stories of ancient Greek culture war and triumph and have a laugh while we do it Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts Thank you, bye!

11:30This time, we're hearing some Israeli perspectives on the war in Gaza. Israel says 50 hostages are still being held in the territory after the October 2023 attack. 20 are believed to be alive. In recent days, Hamas and Islamic Jihad released videos of two of the surviving hostages. They're seen to be desperately thin. Each week, protesters and families of the hostages gather in Tel Aviv in a public plaza that has become known as Hostages Square to call on the Israeli government to secure their release. Israel's plan to take over Gaza City has drawn strong condemnation from the families, warning the move would be a death sentence for their loved ones.

12:13Before the latest images of the two hostages emerged, we brought together Udi, whose cousin Tal's body remains in Gaza, and Gil. His cousin Carmel was killed after nearly 11 months in captivity. Carmel was kidnapped on October 7th from her parents' house in Kibbutz Beri. Her mother, Kineret, was murdered that day and she survived for 328 days in captivity. She was alive for 328 days and there were so many deals on the table on which she was supposed to come back. But one day, the IDF was really patrolling near the area where she was held, and the guards that guarded her were afraid for their own lives, so they decided to kill, get rid of the hostages that they were holding, and they murdered the six hostages, and of course, Kaumel, my cousin.

13:06My cousin was a part of his kibbutz's emergency squad. On October 7th, he was actually the leader. He basically patrolled the parameter of the kibbutz for about an hour and a half as terrorists were trying to infiltrate. And eventually him and his partner, they confronted the terrorists in the front gate. It was the two of them with two M-16s facing about 20 terrorists armed to the teeth with grenades and machine guns and RPGs. and eventually they were both killed and taken to Gaza. I'm so sorry for your families, both of you. I know that obviously these last 21 months must have been incredibly difficult for you both.

13:54I just wonder now, after all this pain on both sides of this devastating war, do you feel ready, do you want there to be an end to the war and a ceasefire? Gil? Kamel was still alive when we said that this war should end. And I think we had a chance to save her. We had a chance to save the other hostages who were murdered. We had a chance to save so many innocent civilians on both sides of the border who were killed due to the war. And we lost this opportunity. We now have an opportunity to end this war and all the horrible things that are happening in Gaza, which I can tell you most of the Israelis don't want to know about, but they are very concerned with this as well.

14:37Innocent people on both sides of the border have said enough is enough, this war should end and we need to get all the hostages back home, including Tal. You feel that you could still have your cousin alive if your government had moved earlier to push for a ceasefire before August 2024? Definitely. I was actually travelling to the United States just one year ago exactly. I was there and Prime Minister Netanyahu was speaking to Congress. And we really wanted him to say that he's going to put an end to this war and to say yes to a deal and to close the deal. But he decided that he wants to keep on fighting.

15:17Carmel was still alive back then and he lost the chance to bring her back. Had he decided to sign this deal in time, she'd be here definitely. What does that feel like, Gil? You know, looking at him and hearing him speak every day after what happened is for me an enormous pain, an enormous personal pain to know that it was his decision that, you know, put her life in danger and actually brought her death. I blame Hamas, of course, and I blame the terrorists that murdered her. But her prime minister had a chance to save her life and he decided not to. But what I'm trying to focus on is on the lives that we can still save.

16:00And it's the lives of 20 hostages, maybe even more than that, because 22 hostages are considered to be alive now in Gaza. And to bring back 28 hostages that should be buried in Israel and put an end to the very sad story of their families. I completely agree with what Gilad said. And we have been talking about this. We as in the Hostage Family Forum and we, many of the families, I would say the vast majority. And, you know, when we try to gather our worldview, we speak to all the decision makers. We speak to the military ranks. We speak to the political ranks. We speak to the negotiation team.

16:41And it was so evident, as it is right now, that the one and only way to get all the hostages back is by making a deal. Now, we have reached a point that if the sense Israel has put two objectives to this war. One is to make sure that Hamas no longer rules Gaza on the day after or is defeated. And the other one is bringing back all the hostages. And today it is more evident than ever before that if we don't prioritize, we will not be able to reach these goals. Now, we've got to remember, as we converse, both Gil and I, we say that we are making demands of our government because they represent us and they're responsible for us.

17:28At the same time, had Hamas put down its arms and decided to bring back all the hostages, then the war would end tomorrow. But sadly, Hamas is a terrorist organization that had shown and proven day after day that it has zero regard to human lives. Well, I believe that Hamas is a terror organization and the people of Gaza deserve a much better future than Hamas controlling them forever and ever and even for one, two or three more years. But I think the only way right now to defeat Hamas would be to first get all the hostages back to end this specific war and then deal with either diplomatic solutions or military solutions to defeat them.

18:10But right now, the war that we're having, the hunger that we see in Gaza, the fact that hostages are still there, I can clearly say this is not the way to get the hostages back and this is not the way to defeat Hamas. Gil and Udi, hoping for the bodies of their loved ones to be returned to Israel. The UN has warned that Israel expanding military operations risks catastrophic consequences for Palestinian civilians and Israeli hostages. Earlier this week, more than a thousand rabbis and other Jewish leaders around the world, including in Israel, signed a public letter urging Israel to allow much more aid into Gaza.

18:50So for our final conversation, we brought together three rabbis. Yuval Sherlow, in Israel, is opposed to recognising a Palestinian state. Jill Jacobs, in New York, was recently arrested during a protest in front of the Israeli consulate. and Avi Darbish is the executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights. He survived the Hamas attack at his home but also supports a ceasefire. I have every Israeli voice inside of me of revenge, of sadness, of anger and despair and so on. But at the end you need to choose. There is life and death as we are saying in the Bible, in the Torah. There are life and death, choose life.

19:32It cannot be only for Jews or only for the people in Israel. It must be equal. And of course, Hamas is so bad for their people and our people, and I'm against them. But not every Palestinian is Hamas. And of course, when we are talking about children, and we have so many partners there in the West Bank, in Gaza, that are aligned with our values. And we have, unfortunately, a lot of people in the Israeli society that are not in line with those values of peace, of justice, of equality. We just commemorated, as Jews, we just commemorated the holiday of Tisha B 'Av, which is a commemoration of the destruction of the two temples in Jerusalem and many other tragedies in Jewish life.

20:16And one of the lessons of Tisha B 'Av is that sovereignty comes with responsibilities. Sovereignty doesn't mean that you just lord over everybody else. I do agree with the idea of responsibility of humanity and the idea of human rights and the fact that we should take care not only for us, but also for the whole area. But I think that we have not to be blind and not to be naive. Don't forget what is the real reason why Avi cannot go back to his home. This is not the IDF and this is not Israel. I heard exactly what not to do, but not what to do in order that those monsters that we saw on the 7th of October will not be able to do it again.

21:00If we are asking, is this land, is the holy land and it belongs to the nation of Israel, my answer is yes. But there are people there. There are human beings there. There are millions of people. and occupying them or trying to expel them from their land is something that is not moral and is not ethical and are not part of it. I'm looking for a solution. Let's say it that way. Nobody argues the fact that if instead of trying to destroy Israel and attack Israel before, I'm talking before the 7th of October, instead of educating their children, instead of investing all the money that they had in tunnels or in attacking, They would have taken care of their people.

21:44We would be very satisfied, very happy. The problem is what to do now after we saw what's happening. Can I just ask how all three of you have felt personally, emotionally, watching the scenes from Gaza in recent months, watching the starvation and the entire cities being razed to the ground virtually? And the hostages, including the whole picture, the entire picture. And the hostages, absolutely. and to watch the videos coming out of the hostages still being held there. I can't sleep at night. I really can't. It's not the position that I want to stand. I don't want to cause any starvation. I don't want to attack anyone.

22:22I really feel very, very depressed from the fact that we are in this situation. But I want to say that I'm looking for a solution that will achieve peace, achieve any kind of agreement, and I don't see it. I want to comment to that challenge. Of course, there is another way. It's not easy. You're talking about us being naive. Let's don't talk like that because, you know, I'm there for 20 years. My children know nothing beyond this terrible reality of war. But Zionism was about being proactive and just being a victim and saying Hamas did that and Hamas did that. Of course they did. And again, I'm saying for the third time, Hamas is so bad for their people and us.

23:12And we can't see them again ruling in Gaza. But we can and we could, like more than a year ago, to have an agreement. And we know that the Palestinian Authority, Egypt and other allies around have this kind of agreement that they want to have another government in Gaza. They want to have the hostages back, our soldiers back, our people like my community back and started something else. But this is the situation. What happens when there is Hebris, when there is this crazy idea of managing the conflict? and that's what happened. And now we have to deal with the reality. I also want to say that I'm heartbroken for the tragedy of Israel.

23:56I think that it could have been different. You know, there's some voices farther to the left that say, well, this was the inevitable result of Zionism. I don't believe that at all. I think there are many paths that could have been taken along the way that would have resulted in both Jews and Palestinians having safety, having a state, having self-determination. having their human rights. And unfortunately, the state of Israel, also Palestinian leadership, but right now I'm focused on my own people. I've made the wrong choice so many times. Rabbis Jill, Yuval and Avi. Thank you to them and all our guests this week.

24:33I'm Emma Vardy, and you've been listening to The Documentary, featuring conversations with Israelis from the BBC World Service.

24:59The End

25:17Francis Galton and the racist discredited pseudoscience of eugenics with Desiree Birch. We'll meet many medieval saints in their bone boxes with Rachel Parrott. So if that sounds like your sort of thing, listen to You're Dead to Me wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. Bye.