Israeli teenager Tal Mitnick, who was jailed for refusing to serve in the Israeli army, said yesterday that he is ready to go to prison again.
Mitnick, 18, said he believes that a war in Gaza is not the way to achieve peace with the Palestinians.
He is the first Israeli who made a conscientious objection to the war.
The teenager was released from an Israeli military prison on Friday after serving a 30-day sentence.
As he said in an interview, he has been labeled a traitor, but he emphasizes that he still holds to his pacifist beliefs.
“I believe that the government and the regime are trying to eliminate Hamas and return the hostages. I think that both goals cannot be achieved with more fighting, as we have seen. The only time we brought hostages was when we exchanged them for prisoners. The more fighting we see, the more dead hostages we see, for example, the Israeli army killed three hostages a few weeks ago because they thought they were Palestinians,” Mitnick pointed out.
He added that the destruction of Hamas, which is the goal of the war, cannot be achieved through fighting.
More than 130 hostages are still in captivity in Gaza, N1 writes.
E.Dz.
