IN THE early hours of Sunday morning, Israel steadily entered a halt. Protesters successfully blocked several of the country’s roads, including Tel Aviv-Jerusalem freeway where bonfires were lighted, and Ayalon intercity highway.

The national strike and disruption day, orchestrated by the Hostages Families Forum and led by countless activist circles and groups, started with a roar.

About 90 municipalities — Tel Aviv Yaffo the largest — three universities, the entire Kibbutzim movement, the lawyers’ bar, numerous high-tech companies, several small unions in the medical, legal and journalism fields and countless private businesses joined the strike.

Citing fear that the ultra-liberal Labour Court would thwart any attempt issue a public strike as an unlawful motion, the Histadruth, the country’s main labour union, refrained from participation. Most of the public sector has consequently remained open. As such, the initiative is better understood as a national mass disruption day than a classic national labour strike.

As the main catalyst for the initiative is Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to invade Gaza City, it is easy to realise why government’s cronies in the media harshly criticise the strike. Likud, the right-wing ruling party, called the strike a “prize for Hamas,” hoping to shame and frighten people from taking part in it.

But, as of the morning hours, thousands were participating in different demonstrations, marches and direct actions, while many more are expected to join the main rally in the evening.

Those who believe the Israeli society to be monolithic, completely unified behind the criminal never-ending war policies of Netanyahu, were proved to be wrong — but one dire question still remains: what is the place of Palestinians, the victims of this horrendous slaughter, in this mass opposition movement?

Answering this question is harder than it seems. For example, Einav Zangauker, the mother of Matan who was captured from his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz, said on Saturday evening: “Israel must stop the [military] campaign that kills the hostages. The State of Israel is not the synonymous for its government — it is first and foremost you, the people. The people have the power and must use it to put an end for it.”

Her words echo those even among those who explicitly call to end the hostilities — solidarity with the people of Gaza remains scarce and mentions of war crimes and genocide charges remains taboo. Today, the main banners under which the Families Forum gather in the Hostages Square call to save “the hostages and the soldiers” — not the Palestinians.

The tens of thousands of slaughtered children of Gaza and bereaved Palestinian families are missing from sight. Only a few hundred activists who gather in weekly vigils show their faces in the streets of Tel Aviv. Truthfully, while the national strike day promised to disrupt the ordinary day-to-day living of Israelis, regarding the erasing of Palestinian suffering from sight, it is mostly business as usual.

But the dialectic nature of historical progression calls for a more thorough analysis. Seeds of resistance are planted wherever the people oppose the government, and it is the duty of the political avant garde to provide the push forward that the masses could follow.

Hadash, the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality and the Communist Youth League called their members to join the strike and radicalise it from within.

The Peace Partnership, an umbrella organisation of occupation resisters, said the following: “The Peace Partnership calls for a strike on Sunday — not merely for the hostages, but for life itself. A life free from endless wars, destruction, hatred, bloodshed.

“We say it bluntly: the government is failing to return the hostages and to keep its people safe, while thousands of families — Israeli and Palestinian — are burying their loved ones. Every day that this war continues is a day of unnecessary death and unbearable suffering. Peace is not a dream — it is our most pressing demand.”

For months, the coalition joined demonstrations as an anti-occupation block, highlighting issues such as starvation, civilian casualties and greater dissolution of society in Gaza. In recent weeks, its messages have been more positively received by larger factions of demonstrators.

For example, calls to refuse military draft, that used to be extremely marginal, has become an almost good form; vigils set to humanise Palestinian casualties attract larger crowds; and charges of war crimes, ethnic cleansing and settlers’ violence are now being put forward by ex-generals and previous prime ministers. As such, the national strike is better understood not as singular event, but as a pivotal moment to take down the ruling class and government.

“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles,” wrote Karl Marx. Society is a living organism, among which conflicting visions clash on a political battlefield. During the first days after October 7, Netanyahu, to avoid responsibility for the carnage, issued the slogan “victorious together.”

The slogan mimicked the fascist propaganda that views war as a national necessity, something to be proud of, detached from political reality of class struggle.

The Israeli public, hurt by the atrocities of that awful day, succumbed into this state of mind easily. When the first war cabinet was formed, only Hadash dared to oppose and vote against in the Knesset. For almost two years, the government tried to maintain this numbing mindset through political repression and persecution of dissidents.

Even lawmakers, such as MK Ayman Odeh and Ofer Cassif (of the Hadash party) were censored. But the illusions of the ruling class cannot remain permanent, as the forces of class struggle will always pave a way to disrupt them.

“Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it,” Marx teaches us. In this revolutionary moment in Israeli society, where the masses mobilise against Netanyahu’s plot to invade Gaza, silence is not an option for true socialists.

It is in fact our duty, to extend this moment both in time and space, and ensure the winds of change can grow to become a hurricane that topples the walls of the Gaza ghetto and free its suffering people. Only after that can true peace emerge from the ruins of war, a peace in which both people enjoy freedom, sovereignty and dignity in a two-states solution.

Amnon Brownfield Stein is a human rights lawyer, Hadash member and writer in Zu Haderech, the newspaper published by the Communist Party of Israel.