Israeli High School Students Strike for End to War, Hostage Deal

Sept. 3—Thousands of Israeli high school students staged protests and strikes on the first day of school Sept. 1, demanding the government be forced to accept a ceasefire and end the war against Gaza and a hostage release deal. Organizers of the strike estimate that “hundreds and even thousands of students” from about 70 schools did not show up to their classrooms, locked the gates to their schools, blocked highway intersections and held rallies in Tel Aviv and other cities as part of the protest, Haaretz reported.

Rotem Richeter, one of the student leaders addressing a protest in front of the Ministry of Education, speaking in English, called on the international community to help end the war.

Students were “supposed to start 12th grade today. Instead, I’m here. I am here because the contract that binds a state and its citizens has been breached,” he said. "I am here because no one is spared—not the hostages, who have been subjected to torture for almost two years now; not the bereaved families, who have suffered unfathomable tragedy; not the survivors of October 7, the orphaned children, the soldiers, or even my friends and me—we are all but pawns in the government’s cynical and destructive game.

“And this is just the Israeli side: Palestinian children, my age and younger, are being killed by the thousands, and the numbers continue to rise. I call on you, the international community, to take action and join us in our efforts to put an end to the war, stop the bloodshed, and bring the hostages back home.”

Another, Naomi Or Afek warned at the same rally that the two-year long war has become “routine. And routine is the most terrible thing, because routine means indifference. And indifference will be our end. I am not willing to live in such a routine, and I am not willing for my children to grow up into it and for many more like me.”