Dozens of Israelis March in Tel Aviv in Support of Teen Refusing to Serve in IDF msn.com

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Dozens of people came to rally around Daniel Schultz, an Israeli teen who will be refusing mandatory military service on Sunday, in Tel Aviv on Thursday evening.

"I decided to refuse [to enlist] because I studied in an international school with Palestinian and Israeli students, and seeing the oppression my classmates had to endure from Israel and the IDF made me realize I cannot take part in a system that does this kind of oppression," Schultz told journalists ahead of the demonstration.

Schultz, 18, finished 12th grade last summer and spent her last year of high school watching Palestinian friends grapple with the effects of the war. "I saw how the genocide affects Palestinian students; I saw my friends mourning their families getting killed in Gaza," she said.

"I cannot take part in the system that's committed those kinds of crimes." Her friends support her decision, she says, and while her family had difficulty with it, they want to bolster her as their child.

The demonstrators, who banged drums and chanted "On the home front and in the field, every soldier is a partner to murder," "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!" and "Daniel is refusing and I love her!" They also chanted "Soldier, halt! You're a terror operative!"

The signs the protesters carried included inscriptions calling to refuse mandatory military service, "Resist a genocidal army," as well as, "Not a murderer, not a rapist – I'm not setting foot in the army."

At Habima Square in the city center, marchers unfurled a banner reading, "We will not kill or be killed in the service of the settlements."

Onlookers expressed disgust at the provocative chants, sometimes shouting at the group, other times approaching to argue with members of the marching crowd. Some onlookers were shouting "shame on you!" and "go to Gaza!" at the marchers.

Two men passed by shouting threats as Daniel read her refusal letter into the megaphone; another came up to tut-tut disapprovingly at the group of demonstrators. Another man approached to ask them about their chants.

"From the river to the sea means that there won't be a place for us," he said to one of the drummers.

Such rallies, which are organized chiefly by the Mesarvot draft refusal network, are usually held outside the induction center. The organizers said that Schultz personally preferred to hold the rally in Tel Aviv, but that security concerns played a part as well.

The group, as well as members of the media covering them, have come under verbal and physical attack by far-right figures, often fellow teens, outside the induction center.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-10-23/ty-article/.premium/dozens-of-israelis-march-in-tel-aviv-in-support-of-teen-refusing-to-serve-in-idf/0000019a-11b3-d2fc-a79a-9ff78d9e0000