JERUSALEM — A growing chorus of Israelis, including those participating directly in the war, are publicly condemning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to resume fighting in the Gaza Strip and calling for an immediate end to the conflict to bring Israeli hostages home.

In the past few days, veterans, reservists, ex-spies and military officers, academics and former diplomats have all appealed to Israel’s leadership, penning open letters critical of the war. It began last week when nearly 1,000 air force pilots — some reservists and some retired — urged the military to secure a deal with Hamas to release the remaining hostages, even if it means withdrawing completely from Gaza.

The Israel Defense Forces responded by saying that anyone who signed the letter would be fired, and Netanyahu slammed the signatories as “an extreme fringe group that is once again trying to break Israeli society from within.” But the floodgates had already been opened, and more than 10,000 Israelis — from paratrooper and tank corps reservists to doctors and educators — have since issued similar calls, including in solidarity with the pilots. Netanyahu’s office declined to comment on the letters.

“We are saying we are at the edge, and that we can’t take it anymore,” said Or Goren, 51, a reserve medical officer and anesthesiologist who helped organize an open letter from fellow physicians. “We believe the war is just being kept alive to serve Netanyahu’s political purposes.”

Hamas and allied militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 250 others to Gaza as hostages. Israel launched a punishing response, and the conflict has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians and destroyed much of the enclave.

“We were all part of this war, and we all felt that it was just that we needed to be part of the military effort to crush Hamas,” said Goren, who estimated that he spent about half of the first six months of the war serving in the military. “But now people have come to understand that the military goals of the war were achieved a long time ago,” he said.

Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire agreement in January, leading to an initial two-month-long pause in the fighting and the release of 33 Israeli hostages, 25 of whom were alive. A second phase of the agreement was scheduled to begin in March, but Israel refused to continue negotiations and instead cut Gaza off from all aid and restarted the war.

As talks were underway and the hostages were released, everyone was “hopeful,” said Guy Poran, a retired air force pilot who led the effort to organize the first letter. “We believed Israel was really negotiating toward making a deal.”

“But once Netanyahu made this crazy decision to throw away the agreement and risk the lives of hostages, it became clear that we needed to do something,” he said, adding that the air force letter echoed sentiments long expressed by demonstrators who have staged weekly protests in support of the hostages and a negotiated end to the conflict.

Danny Yatom previously served as the head of Mossad, Israel’s top spy agency. He signed a letter with around 250 former agents, including two other former spy chiefs, supporting the air force pilots.

“We believe the continuation of the fighting endangers the lives of the hostages and our soldiers, and that all possibilities to reach a deal that will bring an end to the suffering must be exhausted,” the letter said. “We call on the government to make brave decisions and act responsibly for the security of the country and its citizens.”

Yatom said the military made a mistake in saying it would fire the reservist pilots because of their letter. “If they wanted to achieve a stoppage of a stream of other letters,” he said, “they achieved the opposite.”

He said he and the other signatories are under no illusion that the government can be influenced to end the war but that they wanted the public to clearly understand the ramifications of continued fighting in Gaza.

“The war in Gaza needs to stop because the hostages have no time,” Yatom said. “They are dying. What the majority of Israelis are saying is that the government should do its utmost to bring them home.”

That the initial letter came from pilots, he added, is significant because of their large role in ongoing operations. Pilots rely almost completely on their superiors for information, since they do not see directly whom they are attacking on the ground. “The pilots that bomb from very high and don’t see their targets,” he said, “they want to know that those that send them on the mission are doing it because it is necessary to defend the state of Israel.”

In recent days, the military has pushed deeper into the enclave, seizing swaths of land to establish “security corridors” in the north and south. For more than a month, Israel has blocked all food, fuel and medical supplies from entering Gaza, causing enormous suffering, residents and aid groups say.

Dozens of Palestinians have said in interviews in recent weeks that they are surviving on increasingly inadequate amounts of food. Even the limited goods that are still available have been hit so hard by inflation that they are outside the means of most residents, they said.

The World Health Organization has also warned that antibiotics and blood bags are dwindling quickly at the few hospitals that remain somewhat functional. As residents and doctors struggle to grapple with the effects of the blockade, Israeli airstrikes have pummeled buildings, residences and civilian infrastructure.

Between March 18, when Israel shattered the ceasefire, and April 9, there were at least 224 Israeli airstrikes on residential buildings and tents housing the displaced, according to the U.N. Office for Human Rights. At least 1,613 people have been killed since March 18, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry and a further 4,233 people injured.

Cheeseman reported from Beirut.

previous coverage

• Hamas says it’s sending a delegation to Qatar to continue Gaza ceasefire talks
• Israel intensifies strikes across Gaza on Palm Sunday and hits a hospital in the north
• Israel cuts off Gaza’s southern city of Rafah and vows to ‘vigorously’ expand in the territory
• UN says Israel’s aid blockade has opened ‘floodgates of horror’ in Gaza
• Israeli strike on Gaza apartment building kills at least 23, officials say