More than 18 months since the start of the war in Gaza, Israel’s onslaught on the ravaged Palestinian enclave shows no sign of relenting.
Yuval Ben-Ari, however, has decided his war is over.
“The Gaza Strip is a field of ruins, there’s nothing left, and yet the army is planning new operations with no clear objective,” the 40-year-old reservist told Israel’s Radio Haifa in an interview earlier this month.
Like tens of thousands of fellow Israelis, Ben-Ari quickly answered a call-up to fight in the wake of the Hamas-led October 7 attack, the deadliest ever on Israeli soil. He served with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in southern Gaza and in the Netzarim Corridor that splits the enclave down the middle, as well as taking part in Israeli manoeuvres in southern Lebanon during clashes with Hezbollah.
But more than 500 days into the fighting, Ben-Ari wants no further part in military operations that he says have lost sight of the war’s primary objectives – notably the release of the last hostages held in Gaza by Hamas.
“It seems to me that the IDF is carrying out pointless actions that have nothing to do with the return of the hostages,” he added. “I don’t want to be a part of this – and I’m not the only one.”
His words echo the increasingly outspoken criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government since its decision last month to shatter a ceasefire that had stopped the bloodshed in Gaza and enabled the release of 33 Israeli hostages.
“It is with deep sadness, a feeling of guilt and a profound sense of responsibility that I approached my commanding officer to ask him to withdraw me from the reserves. I will never again wear a uniform under this government,” Ben-Ari told Radio Haifa, adding that he had “no confidence in the Israeli leadership”.
‘Tipping point’
Accounts like Ben-Ari's have become increasingly common as growing numbers of Israeli reservists and veterans speak out against a war they say has become motivated primarily by the government’s own political interests.
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Such accounts are listed on the Instagram page of “Soldiers for hostages”, an anti-war advocacy group founded by former reservist Yuval Green, who chose to quit the war back in January 2024.
For Green, a 26-year-old medical student, the “tipping point” came during a ground operation in Gaza’s Khan Younis, when the commander of his parachute unit ordered troops to set fire to a home.
“I asked him, why do this? Why burn the home of a family that will one day come back?” Green recalled in an interview with France Info radio. “The commander said he had no problem with that. I answered I would not do it.”
Green is among more than 100,000 Israelis who have reportedly stopped showing up for reserve duty, according to the online publication +972 Magazine. Israeli national broadcaster Kan has estimated the current attendance rate at around 60%, a steep decline from the weeks following the October 7 attack.
Reserve duty is compulsory for Israeli citizens who have completed their military service, up until the age of 40. Reservists undergo annual training sessions to ensure they are combat-ready. They keep their uniforms and equipment at home, collecting their weapons when they report for duty at their units.
Those who ignore call-ups or choose to leave the reserve corps are known as “refuseniks”, regarded by the state as deserters and liable to punishment.
Dissent in the ranks
Open dissent has been spreading in recent weeks, including among elite units in the Israel Defense Forces.
On April 10, several hundred Air Force retirees and reservists appealed to the government to secure the immediate return of hostages, even if it requires an immediate end to the war in Gaza.
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“The war mainly serves political and personal interests and not security interests,” the signatories, who included a former IDF chief of staff, wrote in a letter published by major newspapers in Israel, voicing unusually blunt criticism of the government.
Netanyahu quickly hit back, stating that “expressions that weaken the IDF and strengthen our enemies in wartime are unforgivable". Army officials stressed that most signatories were retirees, adding that any active reservists would be fired.
However, similar appeals soon followed, signed by hundreds of veterans and reservists from the Navy, the elite Israeli intelligence unit 8200, the Mossad spy agency, and the Armored Corps, including former prime minister and army chief Ehud Barak.
Around a hundred alumni of Israel’s prestigious National Security College have also joined the widening protest movement, which Netanyahu has sought to play down as a “small, noisy, anarchistic, and disconnected group of pensioners – most of whom haven't served in years".
Politics before hostages
Reserve officer Avner Yarkoni, one of the signatories of the letter from Air Force reservists, said the initiative was not aimed at “condemning the war” but rather at “freeing the hostages”.
“The letter does not target the Israeli army,” Yarkoni, a lawyer who has served in the IDF for more than three decades, told FRANCE 24. “It targets Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his strategy of continuing the war for ever, due to political reasons.”
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The principal political reason for the war’s continuation is Netanyahu’s desire to hang on to power, added Guy Poran, a former IDF helicopter pilot. That means satisfying the more extremist elements in the prime minister’s cabinet, for whom ending the war is out of the question.
“Netanyahu chose to tear up the ceasefire agreement and restart the war as soon as his far-right allies threatened to quit his government,” Poran explained, denouncing a “lack of logic” behind the continued military operations.
“We must first negotiate a deal to secure the hostages’ release,” he added. “This war threatens the lives of hostages, of soldiers and of innocent Palestinian civilians.”
‘Grey refusers’
The Israeli website +972 notes that most people defying enlistment orders appear to be so-called “grey refusers”, namely “people who have no real ideological objection to the war but rather have grown demoralised, weary, or fed up that it is dragging on for so long".
Alongside them, the magazine adds, is a small but growing minority of reservists who refuse to serve on ethical grounds. Green, of the advocacy group “Soldiers for hostages”, points to a growing number of people who, “without necessarily caring much about the fate of Palestinians, are no longer at ease with the war’s objectives”.
Economic concerns may also be weighing on Israeli reservists. According to a recent survey by Israel’s employment agency, 48% of reservists have reported a significant loss of income since the start of the war, and 41% say they have been made redundant or forced to leave their jobs because of long spells with the army.
Former hostages and their relatives are also piling pressure on the government to end the fighting, adding to a wave that has gradually turned public opinion against the war. According to the latest survey by Israeli broadcaster Channel 12, almost 70% of Israelis now favour ending the war in order to free the remaining hostages.
This article was translated from the original in French.
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