In mid-July, a few dozen young Jewish Israeli activists marched through the streets of Tel Aviv to protest the ongoing genocide in Gaza. The demonstration ended at Habima Square in the city’s center, where 10 participants who had received army draft notices set them on fire and publicly declared their refusal to enlist. 

The act sparked an uproar on Israeli social media, unleashing a wave of private messages — some supportive, others hostile — alongside calls of incitement from right-wing pages.

“People would reach out to me every single day after we burned the notices,” said 19-year-old Yona Roseman, one of the participants, in an interview with +972. “I don’t know if this alone can bring about change, but even one fewer soldier taking part in the genocide is a positive step.”

Roseman is one of seven young Israelis imprisoned in August for refusing military service in protest of Israel’s genocide and occupation. According to the conscientious objector network Mesarvot, it is the largest number jailed simultaneously since the group began operating in 2016. Their sentences range from 20 to 45 days, after which they will likely be summoned again, serving several more prison terms before being officially discharged.

In total, 17 young Israelis have been jailed for refusal since the war started. The first was Tal Mitnick, who was imprisoned for 185 days. Another, Itamar Greenberg, was held for nearly 200 days, marking the longest sentence for a conscientious objector in over a decade. Their cases signal a hardening of the army’s stance; according to Mesarvot, the military appears to have abandoned its previous policy of releasing refusers after 120 days, making extended prison terms the new norm.

While outright conscientious objection remains rare in Israeli society, Israel’s onslaught on Gaza has sparked a broader wave of refusal among reservists. More than 300 have sought support from the refusal movement Yesh Gvul (Hebrew for “There is a limit”), most of them called up for service in Gaza.

“What characterizes this wave [of refusal], unlike during the First Lebanon War and the [first and second] Intifadas, is that back then there were selective refusers — those who refused to go to Lebanon or the West Bank,” explained Ishay Menuchin, chair of Yesh Gvul. “But now, these are refusers who, for the most part, are unwilling to serve in the army at all.”

Unlike with pre-draft conscientious objectors, the army generally opts to release reservist refusers quickly or reach other arrangements. Of the 300 reservists supported by Yesh Gvul, only four have faced trial. 

‘The decision to refuse is much simpler today’

On August 17, the day Roseman announced her refusal, about 150 demonstrators gathered outside the recruitment office in her hometown of Haifa. Roseman, who had herself been arrested six times at Palestinian-led demonstrations in Haifa, watched as police swiftly declared the protest illegal and, as they routinely do at Palestinian-led anti-war rallies in Haifa, violently arrested 10 people. 

“True recognition of the scale of destruction that our state is sowing, of the suffering it inflicts upon its subjects, demands action accordingly,” she told the crowd before the protest was shut down. “If you see the magnitude of the atrocities and see yourselves as moral people, you cannot continue business as usual, despite the cost, whether social or legal.”

Roseman had first decided to refuse in early 2023 while taking part in weekly demonstrations against the judicial overhaul. At the time, she marched with the “anti-occupation bloc,” a small contingent that insisted on linking the government’s attempt to weaken the judiciary with Israel’s ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territories — often to the chagrin of mainstream protest organizers. She was also one of 230 young people to sign the “Youth against dictatorship” letter a few weeks before October 7, pledging to “refuse to join the military until democracy is secured for all who live within the jurisdiction of the Israeli government.”

“I think the decision to refuse is much simpler today,” Roseman said. “There’s little need or desire to philosophize about militarism and obedience because there is a genocide, and it’s obvious that you don’t enlist in an army that is committing genocide.”

Already deeply involved in joint activism with Palestinians — providing “protective presence” in rural Palestinian communities in the West Bank against settler and army violence, and joining anti-genocide demonstrations in Haifa — Roseman said her personal relationships with Palestinian activists have only strengthened her decision to refuse. “If you want to be a partner to Palestinians, you cannot join the army that is killing them,” she said. “These are people you know, whose homes are being demolished or who are being killed.”

Her solidarity work with Palestinians, she said, also exposed the limits of trying to reform the system from within. “There were times when a soldier threw a stun grenade at me, detained me, or when I saw soldiers demolishing homes I had slept in, homes of fellow Palestinian activists. That really changes your perspective, your understanding that this isn’t ‘my’ army, that the army is against me.”

Outside activist circles, Roseman’s decision to refuse has come at a personal cost. “Some classmates cut ties with me because of it. I left my gap year program early because of difficulties around my refusal,” she explained. Her family, she added, “stood by me as their daughter, but it’s not a decision they supported.”

Unlike most refusniks in Israeli military jails, Roseman spends most hours of the day in solitary confinement. As a trans prisoner, she is only taken out for short, last-in-line breaks under army policy — the same treatment faced by another trans draft refuser, Ella Keidar Greenberg, earlier this year. 

“It’s important for me to point out, especially after being treated in a humiliating way following my arrest at protests, that the state’s attitude toward queer people is liberal and progressive only under specific conditions,” she said. “The moment you don’t meet the national standard, your rights are stripped away.”

‘We didn’t get here by accident’

On July 31, a few weeks before Roseman’s imprisonment, two 18-year-old Israelis — Ayana Gerstmann and Yuval Peleg — were sentenced to 30 and 20 days in prison, respectively, for refusing to enlist. Gerstmann has since been released, while Peleg received an additional 30-day term. If recent cases are any indication, he is likely to face four or five more before being discharged.

“I am here to refuse to take part in genocide and to send a message to anyone who will listen: as long as the genocide continues, we cannot live in peace and security,” Peleg declared before entering prison.

Raised in a liberal Zionist family in the middle-class city of Kfar Saba, Peleg described his decision to refuse as a recent one. “We never talked about refusal [at home]. We talked a lot about Bibi [Netanyahu], and a little about the occupation,” he said in a joint interview with Gerstmann before their imprisonment.

For Peleg, exposure to non-Israeli online media in the early days of the war was a turning point. “It gave me a perspective I didn’t have growing up,” he said. “At some point, it dawned on me that the Israeli army is not the moral, protective, good army I thought it was.” 

As the war progressed and the scale of Israel’s assault on Gaza became clearer, “it became a relatively easy decision not to enlist,” he said. Refusal also offered him an opportunity to voice dissent. “There’s almost no place in this country where you can say these things.”

For Gerstmann, who grew up in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan, the decision to refuse had been years in the making. “In fifth grade, we were given a school assignment to write about places in Jerusalem for Jerusalem Day. It was supposed to stir patriotic feelings, but for me, it did the opposite,” she recalled.

Although the occupation was often discussed at home, she had not truly encountered it until that moment. “My mom suggested I check out B’Tselem’s website and read about East Jerusalem for the school project,” she told +972. “That was the first time I saw what was happening there. I was shocked.”

In the Israeli education system, she added, “they always talk about East Jerusalem only in the context of the city’s ‘unification,’ and praise the [1967] war [during which it was captured]. Suddenly I was exposed to how much injustice and suffering it involved.” 

By age 16, she had made the decision not to enlist in the military. “I told a friend that I wanted to get a mental health exemption because I opposed the occupation,” she said. Her friend challenged her: “‘If those are your beliefs, why don’t you just stand by them and say them? Why do you need to hide behind lies?’” 

“That was the moment it clicked for me,” she recalled. “I realized she was right — that I needed to shout my refusal clearly and publicly.”

As with Roseman and Peleg, Gerstmann felt the case for refusal became undeniable once the war in Gaza broke out and Israel’s assault on the Palestinian people intensified. “It’s become much clearer that refusing is the right thing to do, that you must not cooperate with what the army is doing in Gaza,” she said.

Gerstmann and Peleg hope their refusal sends a message to every soldier being sent to Gaza: there is a choice. “For years we’ve been conditioned to think you must enlist, that it’s impossible to challenge that. But what we’re seeing now in Gaza is the red line that proves there absolutely is a choice.”

“We’ve reached a level of violence and destruction that we have never seen in the history of this land,” Peleg said. “Israel will never return to what it was on October 6, 2023. It’s clear we are in the midst of an ongoing genocide. Faced with that, we refuse.”

For Peleg, it was important to emphasize that Israel’s campaign of annihilation in Gaza did not come out of nowhere. “We didn’t get here by accident,” he explained. “Israel has always carried elements of occupation, fascism, and racism toward Palestinians — obviously since 1967, but even if you go back to the Nakba. It’s not surprising that we’ve reached a situation where genocide against Palestinians is taking place.”

Even as Israeli public opinion has shifted sharply to the right, Gerstmann said she still hopes to reach her peers. “I hear the phrase ‘There are no innocent people in Gaza,’ becoming normalized. That’s very worrying, but my refusal is, in fact, a rejection of despair,” she said. “I hope it will open their eyes and allow them to think and understand what the army is doing in their name.”

Both acknowledged the fear of refusing publicly in a society that equates the act with treason. “Of course it’s scary, but it didn’t deter me,” Gerstmann said. “On the contrary, what we’ve been seeing since the start of this war made me realize I absolutely have to refuse.”

‘I can’t be part of this anymore’

Two more conscientious objectors imprisoned this past month, who spoke with +972, chose to remain anonymous for personal and family reasons.

R., an 18-year-old from the city of Holon, was sentenced to 30 days in prison. “I decided to refuse before October 7, but after seeing the destruction in Gaza, I understood that I couldn’t keep hesitating,” he said. “After that, enlisting was simply out of the question for me.”

His message to other young people was blunt: “Just refuse. In the current climate, in light of what we’re seeing in Gaza, you have to resist.”

Another refuser, B., followed a more unusual path. A 19-year-old who had enlisted in the Civil Administration — the military body that governs Palestinians in the West Bank — he decided to refuse after eight months of service and was sentenced to 45 days in prison.

“Before enlisting, I had been in the West Bank, met people, and understood the situation there,” B. recalled. “It was hard for me even then, I really didn’t want to enlist. [But then] I talked to some people, and they convinced me to join anyway.”

What he witnessed on the base ultimately cemented his decision to refuse. “In training and in the field, I saw a lot of things and thought, ‘Wow, I can’t be part of this anymore.’ Much of it was seeing the other soldiers — how they talked, how they behaved — people driven by extreme racism.”

The brutality, he said, was pervasive. “I saw Palestinians being beaten for no reason. They tie them up, leave them handcuffed in the sun for 24 hours, face down on their knees without water or food. Soldiers would walk by and kick them. I was shocked.”

“On my second day, I saw one detainee and asked what he had done. They said he ‘didn’t obey the force.’ Then I saw another one getting kicked. They said, ‘He deserves it.’ There was no shortage of cases like that.”

One incident still haunts him. “A soldier spoke Hebrew to a Palestinian, and when he answered in Arabic, the soldier slammed his head against a wall and said, ‘You’re in Israel, speak Hebrew.’ I told him, ‘He doesn’t understand.’ You’d see violence like this all the time.”

The abuse, he added, spared no one — not even the elderly. “I saw a 70-year-old Palestinian man who was completely beaten. When I asked the other soldiers what he had done, they told me he had ‘disrespected the force.’”

“They had nothing to charge him with, so they kept him for 14 or 15 hours, without food or water, and then said, ‘Next time don’t do that.’ They didn’t even transfer him to the police — what could they possibly say to them?”