HOD HASHARON, Israel: “We mothers of soldiers haven’t slept in two years,” said Ayelet-Hashakhar Saidof, a lawyer who founded the Mothers on the Front movement in Israel.
A 48-year-old mother of three, including a soldier currently serving in the army, Saidof said her movement brings together some 70,000 mothers of active-duty troops, conscripts and reservists to demand, among other things, a halt to the fighting in Gaza.
Her anxiety was familiar to other mothers of soldiers interviewed by AFP who have refocused their lives on stopping a war that many Israelis increasingly feel has run its course, even as a ceasefire deal remains elusive.
In addition to urging an end to the fighting in Gaza, Mothers on the Front’s foremost demand is that everyone serve in the army, as mandated by Israeli law.
That request is particularly urgent today, as draft exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jews have become a wedge issue in Israeli society, with the military facing manpower shortages in its 21-month fight against the militant group Hamas.
As the war drags on, Saidof has become increasingly concerned that Israel will be confronted with long-term ramifications from the conflict.
“We’re seeing 20-year-olds completely lost, broken, exhausted, coming back with psychological wounds that society doesn’t know how to treat,” she said.
“They are ticking time bombs on our streets, prone to violence, to outbursts of rage.”
According to the army, 23 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza over the past month, and more than 450 have died since the start of the ground offensive in October 2023.
Saidof accuses the army of neglecting soldiers’ lives.
Combat on the ground has largely dried up, she said, and soldiers were now being killed by improvised explosives and “operational mistakes.”
“So where are they sending them? Just to be targets in a shooting range?” she asked bitterly.
Over the past months, Saidof has conducted her campaign in the halls of Israel’s parliament, but also in the streets.
Opening the boot of her car, she proudly displayed a stockpile of posters, placards and megaphones for protests.
“Soldiers fall while the government stands,” one poster read.
Her campaign does not have a political slant, she maintained.
“The mothers of 2025 are strong. We’re not afraid of anyone, not the generals, not the rabbis, not the politicians,” she said defiantly.
Saidof’s group is not the only mothers’ movement calling for an end to the war.
Outside the home of military chief of staff Eyal Zamir, four women gathered one morning to demand better protection for their children.
“We’re here to ask him to safeguard the lives of our sons who we’ve entrusted to him,” said Rotem-Sivan Hoffman, a doctor and mother of two soldiers.
“To take responsibility for military decisions and to not let politicians use our children’s lives for political purposes that put them in unnecessary danger” .
Hoffman is one of the leaders of the Ima Era, or “Awakened Mother,” movement, whose motto is: “We don’t have children for wars without goals.”
“For many months now, we’ve felt this war should have ended,” she told AFP.
“After months of fighting and progress that wasn’t translated into a diplomatic process, nothing has been done to stop the war, bring back the hostages, withdraw the army from Gaza or reach any agreements.”
Beside her stood Orit Wolkin, also the mother of a soldier deployed to the front, whose anxiety was visible.
“Whenever he comes back from combat, of course that’s something I look forward to eagerly, something I’m happy about, but my heart holds back from feeling full joy because I know he’ll be going back” to the front, she said.
At the funeral of Yuli Faktor, a 19-year-old soldier killed in Gaza the previous day alongside two comrades, his mother stood sobbing before her son’s coffin draped in the Israeli flag.
She spoke to him in Russian for the last time before his burial.
“I want to hold you. I miss you. Forgive me, please. Watch over us, wherever you are.”
