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Nanjeanne

(6,176 posts) Tue Jun 10, 2025, 09:08 AM Tuesday

Brave Israeli Citizens: The Israelis Protesting With Photos of Dead Gazan Children

The thing that stands out is the eyes – not of the people standing, but of those in the pictures. Here is an 11-year-old girl smiling at the camera, making a heart with her hands; there is a golden-haired girl in a pink jumper; over there, a younger girl, five or six-years-old, with earrings and Minnie Mouse ears on her head, smiling shyly. Another picture features a slim, bespectacled child, his expression innocent. He did not yet reach the age when one loses one's innocence.

Yakin, Iman, Bissan and Baraa were killed by Israeli military strikes after Israel broke the cease-fire agreement in Gaza in March. All four could be spotted last Saturday on signs at the children's pictures protest at Tel Aviv's Kaplan Street. There, even children whose names have not been released by the IDF receive a poster, accompanied by a picture and details beyond a figure in a rising casualty count. "Involuntarily involved," reads the inscription above each name.

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When they started carrying the pictures, they prepared themselves accordingly. "We thought we were going to get beaten up. We were very, very surprised that the response was different, that people came over, asked what this was, who are those children, what happened to them. The first responses were like 'Is this real? No, this cannot be true.'"
According to Beck, those skeptical responses injected participants with optimism, as the doubt was not cast at the activists, but at messages that took root in public discourse early in the war – about good and evil, truth and lie. "We felt that here, at last, something is coming in through the cracks of denial. The sense is that this thing is trickling down to people."

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"I was spat at a few times, we were told 'Too bad you haven't been raped; too bad your children have not been murdered and kidnapped to Gaza.'" As far as she is concerned, though, one thing made it all worthwhile: "A Palestinian guy passing by secretly gestured 'Thank you,' modestly. This was very meaningful, certainly within the circle of hate."
On Saturday, after the action, participants moved on to the next stage: a circle of emotion-sharing. For a long while, activists sat and shared their feelings with each other. Future actions were also discussed, as were protests taking place in other places – outside air force bases or university campuses, and around the world. Those present took solace in the trending growth.
"It is a fact that people are joining us," Beck concludes. "Usually, when I used to attend anti-occupation actions, I would be familiar with everybody there. Here, I don't know 99 percent of the people. It's so fun to be unfamiliar."

Read this long whole article from Haaretz here. https://archive.is/h7Q0q]

There are many organizations mentioned in article. This one, Looking the Occupation Im the Eye, is an important one for activists in Israel https://www.mistaclim.org/en]

Who Are We
We are a group of ordinary Israeli citizens, people who care about human rights and the future of the country. We oppose the occupation and are working to end it. In the meantime, we are taking part in cross-organizational activities with the aim of preventing as far as possible the violation of Palestinian rights in the occupied territories. Our goal here is one and clear: raising awareness among the general public and exposing it to reality in the territories, not mediated by media, but rather net as reflected in the eyes of us, activists who are on the ground.

In the protest camp that we have set up, we talk about human rights, about morality, about the loss of a human photographer, about the relationship of forces of an occupier versus a conquered one, and that even under occupation there are laws, obligations and red lines that do not cross.

Through videos, fact sheets, lectures, activities and meetings with creators and activists who walk around the field and are ready to have a discussion with any guest, we try to get people to look the occupation in the eye, to reach the many people who understand and know but choose to ignore, to those who are aware but prefer not to know, to those who hear and see who are afraid to take a stand...

Changes begin slowly and gradually seep in. So is the change in consciousness that Israeli society has to undergo: from a state of occupier consciousness to a state of aspiration for an arrangement that will allow Palestinians in the occupied territories to live and earn a living with dignity, to raise their children without fear and terror from settlers or the army.

We ask the public to get their heads out of the sand and see the harsh reality without softening filters: we are committing acts on the Palestinian people that under international law are defined as war crimes. The damage to Israeli society is enormous: moral and moral degradation, violence that seeps into society, mental scars and traumas that remain after service in the occupied territories.

We seek to look the occupation in the eyes and understand where this path takes us all.

Im posting this to let some people here on DU know that in Israel there are activists trying desperately to make a difference. They don’t get much attention, not even in Israel much less here in the US but they do exist and they are strong and brave and compassionate.