TEL AVIV, Israel—Israel and Hamas have agreed to a ceasefire and hostage deal Wednesday after 15 months of fighting, negotiators from both sides announced. 

The three-phase deal, expected to take effect on Sunday, will begin with the release of 33 women, children, and older adult Israeli hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian women and children imprisoned in Israel. Soldiers and young males will be released in the second phase. 

In the weeks leading to the deal, The Beacon embedded with thousands of protesters marching in the streets of Tel Aviv, chanting in demand to end the war in the Gaza Strip and the return of all hostages. Among these demands, another rings out: peace. 

Since the Oct. 7 attack, Israeli society—which includes about 7 million Jews, 2 million Muslims, and thousands of Christians and members of other religious sects—has been deeply impacted by the historic conflict. More than 1,200 people were killed in the 2023 attack, most of whom were civilians, and roughly 250 were kidnapped by Hamas. Currently, an estimated 98 hostages are still in captivity. In response to the attack, the Israeli military carried out a wide-spread military operation, killing an estimated 46,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the Gaza Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory. 

“This is not over,” said Ben Hoshen— the chair of Hademocartim haze’irim centrist-left youth party. “We need to do everything to fully end the war, bring everyone home, and reach an agreement with the Palestinians that will assure prosperity, welfare, and regional peace.” 

The Israeli political left had been gathering weekly to protest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government, evolving from the 2023 demonstrations against his judicial reform—an attempt to overhaul the judicial system and disrupt checks and balances.

People of different backgrounds, ages, and ideological grounds united at the protests in their cry for the end of the war and the release of hostages. 

“Early on, I realized that a hostage deal simply does not serve the government’s interests,” said Hoshen in an early January interview with The Beacon. “We saw that deals were thwarted because of made-up military needs, such as entering Rafah or keeping the Philadelphi [corridor] open.” 

On Jan. 4, the protesters congregated around the central stage in front of Israel’s military headquarters in Tel Aviv. Speeches by activists referred to the corruption of the Netanyahu government and the need to end the war, but refrained from mentioning the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza.

 A few hundred yards from the protest’s central stage stood a group of teenagers with drums and signs that read: “Palestinian Lives Matter.” 

“Soldier, listen! Disobey the orders given!” chanted the group while holding a “ceasefire now” banner. 

“I grew up on values of peace and respect,” said Yuval Tzur, 20, an organizer with Anti-Occupation Bloc, a combination of organizations that focus on the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and a path toward Palestinian statehood. “It’s important to voice a more critical and direct voice that opposes the army’s and the government’s actions.” 

He went on tours to the West Bank and volunteered with Palestinians who shared their experiences with him after he joined the Bloc, he said. 

“No one reports on it in the news,” he said, referring to the Israeli military’s actions in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. “I think it’s easier to live here when you don’t look at all the wrongdoings and separate yourself from it.”

Hoshen said that even though Israeli media doesn’t show the devastation in Gaza, many Israelis learn about what is happening there from international news outlets, social media, and Telegram channels that show unfiltered footage of the destruction. 

“It will take time to find empathy after Oct. 7,” Hoshen said. “I prefer to put my energy not in watching people suffer, but to find viable solutions to the conflict.” 

The sea of signs at the weekly protests included purple banners that read, “There has to be another solution—yes, peace.” These belonged to Standing Together, one of the largest Israeli-Palestinian collaborative social groups aiming to find viable solutions to the conflict. As of 2024, the group has 5,000 registered members at 12 branches across the country and 14 student cohorts at partnering universities.  

Standing Together opposes the occupation and has been an active voice for Palestinian rights. The organization has sent thousands of humanitarian packages into Gaza during the war. 

On university campuses, the movement localizes its goals to the specific needs of students, according to the movement’s student cohort coordinator, Ella Lotan. The cohort’s main fight has been against the increase in political persecution and racism towards Arab students on campuses, she said. 

“After the war began, we heard about Palestinian students who are getting disciplinary actions and even kicked out of school because of posts or likes on social media,” she said. “There was a teacher that had a Palestinian flag behind her in a Zoom class and students demanded she would be fired.” 

Both Lotan and Hoshen said there was a wave of left-leaning individuals who “sobered” up immediately after the trauma of Oct. 7 and moved away from the idea of peace. According to the 2024 national pulse, support for a two-state solution dropped to 21% among Israeli Jews after Oct. 7, compared to 42% in 2020. 

“But it feels that as time passes, our movement becomes more and more legitimate,” Lotan said. “More people understand that there is no other way [but to work together].” 

Lotan noted the difficulty of protesting the war on Israeli campuses but challenged the notion that the conversation is taboo. 

“People were afraid of talking about what is happening in Gaza, but we told them ‘Look at campuses in the U.S. They are talking about it, so why can’t we?’” she said. “Some of my classmates are fighting in Gaza, some are hostages, and so many are suffering because of this war. We can’t be silent.” 

Other members of Standing Together view the protests on U.S. college campuses as being too one-sided. Aya Khateeb, a Palestinian with an Israeli ID, joined the group after arriving at the Hebrew University. 

“When I came to the first event, I thought it would just be Jews eating hummus and trying to connect to our culture,” Khateeb said. “But when I got there, well, there was hummus, but the organizers spoke Arabic with me. This was the first time something like this happened.”

Seeing an unjust political equation drove her to learn more about the conflict and become a member of the organization, she said. 

“I see people from both sides saying ‘this is all ours,’ but that kind of rhetoric is completely disconnected and unrealistic,” said Khateeb. “I don’t like that the [U.S.] protests are run by people who have never experienced reality here and want to talk in our name about what’s happening here. You can fight against injustice, but not by opposing the mere existence of the other side.”  

Minutes after the ceasefire deal was announced, Khateeb rejoiced but urged that more needs to be done. 

“The fight is not over, we have to work for the rehabilitation of everyone, on all sides.” 

Aya Arbel-Sharif, 25, said she has participated in protests for social causes her whole life. On a cool early January night, surrounded by protesters drumming and chanting, Arbel-Sharif held a makeshift cardboard poster. Black marker lettering spelled out the word “shalom”—“peace” in Hebrew. 

Arbel-Sharif said she can’t imagine a viable future in which Israel sustains the occupation and conflict. 

“There are the same amount of Jews and Palestinians between the river and the sea,” she said. “Our only way to exist here is together.”