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Israel is going to call up about 60,000 reservists in the coming weeks
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as it pushes ahead with plans to take control of Gaza City, the IDF has said
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The move comes two days after Hamas said it had accepted the proposal for a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza
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amid continued fierce criticism of Israel's 22-month offensive. A military official speaking to the press on condition of anonymity
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said the first call-up noticed it would be sent in the coming days. But there are more and more Israelis who are deciding not to answer that call
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Ido Ilan is an Israeli teenager who's refusing to be drafted into the IDF
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He is one of them. Ido, thanks so much for joining us on the show this morning. Tell us why, when that call comes, or whether it's come already, you are going to refuse
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I refuse the call for draft, even though it's mandatory in my country
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because I see the current war, or better called genocidal war, as not only illegal and immoral
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but as something that will risk not only the Palestinians, but my own security right now and in the future as a whole
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Because in the end of the day, when we continue killing, we are talking about more than tens of thousands
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of children, women and men in Gaza and we continue the occupation And we are talking even about completely occupying the Gaza Strip Then we talking about creating more and more hate more and more generations that will not be able to change reality for the better
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As a result of this principal decision that you're taking, what are the potential consequences for you
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the consequences for refusal at least for the mandatory call and not the reservist call is
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imprisonment i was imprisoned when i refused for the first time and right now there is in prison
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more than eight other refuseniks and 18 19 years old and were sitting out their term because they
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just told the army we will not enlist. Besides that, you have the hundreds and hundreds of reservists who are refusing
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And even though they are not getting sent to prison, they are still experiencing
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austerisation and they are still experiencing hate. And we are talking at this point about the whole movement of young people saying both
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for our positions which we oppose the genocide and also the more mainstream positions
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like the fact that this war is killing the hostages. We're very close
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to killing all the hostages that are left All of the people are now saying we cannot continue this war because this war hurts us Are you and those like you who are refusing to answer the draft call
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are you not only facing potential legal sanction, but are you facing hostility from your fellow Israelis
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is the short-term answer is obviously yes i mean i get daily hate online everybody that's active
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and open about it's their anti-genocide positions here is basically getting death threats
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hate curses i mean the past people at protests spat at me uh yelled at me attacked us took signs
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just because we protested. Just this month when we protested outside the enlistment base
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for the two refuseniks that refused that day, we were attacked by a mob of right-wingers
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and were not protected at all by the police or army that was present there
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And that's just like the daily life of any activist here, basically
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At this point, we're not surprised by it because we're almost two years into this
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and we were experiencing this in October 2023 as well. Ida, do you see this war as having any end? I mean, your Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has
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said that he will not even consider a cessation until Hamas is defeated Who knows what defeat for Hamas means It hard to imagine exactly how it could be extinguished forever Do you think that this war is going to end anytime soon
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I think that as long as we continue with this narrative that we can defeat Hamas, we can stop terrorism
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we can make peace by force, then it will never end. Because like we see now, we're two years into this
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We're the most powerful army, as we are told, and we cannot even defeat an organization like Hamas, which we are told is a small organization, not organized
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And this shows clearly that it's not working through force. And it shows clearly that the only way out of this, the only way out of this cycle of death for all sides is to talk about peace and talk about freedom for the Palestinian people
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and that will be on the table and that will be an option once the UK government
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the US government and all governments around the world will condemn Netanyahu for the war criminal that he is
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and stop giving him aid and arms like they do now. Stop being complicit in this genocide, basically
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Guido Elam there, Israeli teenager, refusing to be drafted into the IDF
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Whatever you think about the war, whatever you think about the rights and wrongs, whatever you think about Gaza and Palestine and Israel
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takes a lot of courage to do something like that it is a principle decision, clearly a decision of principle
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whether you agree with it or not
