On Saturday night, over a thousand demonstrators gathered in Tel Aviv’s Habima Square to demand an end to the war with Iran, waving signs emblazoned with slogans such as “children are growing up in bomb shelters” and “endless war is not a strategy.”

The crowd of protesters, by far the largest since war broke out with Iran over a month ago, convened in the square as strong support for the operation among the Jewish public showed its first signs of waning.

Parallel rallies were held in Jerusalem, Haifa, Beersheba and over a dozen other locations.

“We just don’t trust who’s at the wheel,” said Nava Rozolyo, a lawyer and prominent anti-government activist who was set to give a speech at last week’s demonstration. “This war is a political war, being exploited for [the coalition’s] political needs.”

Despite the economy being battered and widespread disruptions to daily life, most Israeli Jews have welcomed the military campaign against Iran launched with the US on February 28. An Israel Democracy Institute survey taken in mid-March found 93 percent support for the war among Jewish Israelis.

But its latest poll, taken from March 22-26, put support among Jewish Israelis at 78%, reflecting growing weariness over the fighting and how the war is being managed.

Among Arab Israelis, the meager support for the war fell even lower in the new poll, from 26% to just 19% in support.

While there was a small smattering of anti-war protests throughout March, most were quickly shut down by police, citing Home Front Command guidelines on gatherings.

On Saturday night as well, police began violently dispersing the crowd, arresting 13 participants. Officers were seen hurling protesters to the ground, shoving an Arab lawmaker and antagonizing attendees even after the demonstration ended.

Law enforcement said the protest ran up against regulations barring outdoor public gatherings of over 50 people, but protesters and their supporters accused police of acting to stifle political dissent, noting that officers have behaved differently when it comes to Haredi religious events and Purim street parties that flout wartime restrictions.

Like Rozolyo, many at the protests were stalwarts of the anti-government movement that has brought masses into the streets in recent years to demonstrate against what they see as corruption and anti-democratic moves by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition and against his handling of the war in Gaza and hostage negotiations.

While Saturday’s protest was certainly the largest in the past month, it was still minuscule compared to anti-government demonstrations in recent years, which have numbered in the hundreds of thousands.

The subdued turnout is partly linked to abiding support for the war, but activists said they’ve been grappling with another problem — convincing people to take to the streets amid the war and ongoing missile fire.

“The struggle is now to convince people to leave the house,” said Alon Lee Green, who heads the Jewish-Arab movement Standing Together. “To show people that it’s alright to protest during wartime and to voice opposition.”

He and other career activists are hoping to leverage the police crackdown and the coverage it received to turn out a larger crowd this coming week.

During its early weeks, dissent against the US-Israeli offensive consisted of small protests organized and attended solely by those on Israel’s far left. Staunch pacifists, communists and anti-occupation activists were among the scant dozens voicing opposition.

The first protest after the war’s outbreak drew no more than twenty participants to Habima Square on March 3. Unlike Saturday night’s demonstration — whose rhetoric focused on the war’s toll on Israeli society — these Jewish protesters came with signs voicing fierce condemnation of the IDF’s military actions.

“Refuse to kill and die in service of corruption, fascism and Jewish supremacy,” one Hebrew sign read, while another in English demanded an end to “Israel’s aggression throughout the Mideast.”

Police quickly broke the gathering up, confiscated the signs and arrested one protester, 19-year-old Itamar Greenberg.

Greenberg, who was arrested again at Saturday night’s protest, described his discussions with other detainees as they sat in detention.

“There were some people who served as reservists who felt that this war isn’t completely unjustified and just oppose how it’s being conducted,” he recalled.

He told The Times of Israel that he and other left-wingers are striving to find common cause with anti-government groups that have built a wide base of support from both the right and left of the political spectrum by largely avoiding thornier national security issues, such as Israel’s control of the West Bank.

“The goal has always been to mobilize the Israeli [anti-government] protest movement; we don’t have enough power on our own to stop this war,” he said.

As co-director of Standing Together, a progressive Jewish-Arab group, Green has tried to expand the anti-war movement by bringing in moderates who may see the fighting as detrimental to the self-interest of Israeli society. He described the group’s role as the “glue” between anti-war leftists and anti-government moderates.

Rozolyo, who took part in these discussions, said the movement’s efforts were crucial in turning out a larger number of protesters Saturday.

“In the first week, the protests took more of a pacifist direction — opposition to war on principle,” Rozolyo said of the earlier demonstrations, which she did not partake in.

Among anti-government demonstrators, opposition to the war stems from the day-to-day burden of incessant missile fire, uncertainty regarding the offensive’s aims and durability of American support, as well as a burgeoning sense that the ruling coalition seeks to exploit the fighting to advance a divisive political agenda, she said.

According to Green, the vast majority of protest groups linked to the anti-government struggle threw their support behind Saturday’s protest and committed to spreading the word among their supporters.

The two groups that remain on the fence are the high-tech sector’s protest movement and reservist-led Brothers in Arms, reflecting still-high support for the war among most Israeli Jews. Both have considerable sway in the Israeli protest sphere.

Though many groups offered support to the protests, there remained apprehension about calling on their supporters to transgress restrictions set by the Home Front Command, a Jerusalem activist affiliated with the Safeguarding our Shared Home group said.

“It’s more of a tentative invitation; we’re updating people on the event but not officially inviting them,” said the activist, who requested anonymity to speak openly about insider dynamics.

Green said that his movement has struggled to turn people out onto the streets. Iran sends missiles several times a day, especially toward the Tel Aviv area, and Hezbollah continues to carry out attacks from Lebanon.

“It’s difficult because the reality is complex,” he said. “There’s tons of [air raid] sirens in a day, maybe you have to take a long route from your home to the demonstration — there might be a missile attack while you’re on your way there.”

On top of the missile threat, most Israelis — including around half of Jewish Israelis who identify with the left, and 69.5% who identify with the center — support the current campaign against Iran, according to the IDI survey.

Rozolyo said that she and many others were initially torn regarding the operation. “Many support the idea of eliminating a security threat, acting against terror groups and Iran, but have now realized that the government is telling us lies,” she claimed.

While cautioning against a one-to-one comparison, she harked back to the early months of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. Immediately after the terror group’s massacre on October 7, 2023, there was an “interim period” in which people — even those critical of the government — rallied around the flag.

“Even those against the government supported its actions because they believe that in that moment, it is actually representing Israel’s security interests,” she said, arguing there is a similar effect at play during the ongoing war with Iran.

Unlike the war in Gaza, there was no massacre that led to an Israeli counteroffensive. If protests continue to escalate, it would mean dissent against the government has bounced back much quicker than it did in the wake of October 7.

“I’m not saying this operation is entirely a war of choice — most people don’t think this way — but as time passes, it becomes clear the government is using the war to advance other interests, whether it be the judicial overhaul or passing the budget in a pinch,” Rozolyo said.

Are you relying on The Times of Israel for accurate and timely coverage of the Iran war right now? If so, please join The Times of Israel Community. For as little as $6/month, you will:

Support our independent journalists who are working around the clock under difficult conditions to cover this conflict;

Read ToI with a clear, ads-free experience on our site, apps and emails; and

Gain access to exclusive content shared only with the ToI Community, including weekly letters from founding editor David Horovitz.

We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.

You clearly find our careful reporting of the Iran war valuable, at a time when facts are often distorted and news coverage often lacks context.

Your support is essential to continue our work. We want to continue delivering the professional journalism you value, even as the demands on our newsroom have grown dramatically during this ongoing conflict.

So today, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. For as little as $6 a month you'll become our partners while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.

Thank you,David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel

1 Satellite images begin to show damage wrought across the region by Iran war

2 AnalysisAs Trump signals retreat from war, Israel may have to keep fighting Iranian threat

3 Trump: No deal needed to end the war, Iran won’t be able to obtain a nuke ‘for years’

4 Frustrated with allies, Trump tells countries needing fuel to go to Hormuz and ‘just take it’

5 Iranian media says desalination plant on Gulf island non-functional after airstrikes

6 InterviewReviewing massacre footage, Bondi hero’s daughter discovers more of her dad’s bravery

7 AnalysisIran’s regime remains defiant despite absorbing massive blows from Israel and the US

8 8 lightly hurt by cluster bombs in central Israel as Iranian attacks persist across region

anti-government protests

2026 US-Israel war with Iran

© The Times of Israel