On 15 December 2023, the Israeli cabinet announced that it would allow the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip through the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing.
The announcement overturned a previous decision by Israel to put Gaza under total siege in retaliation for the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023.
Allowing the entry of humanitarian aid, however, did not sit well with some families of the captives taken on 7 October.
Claiming they had lost faith in Netanyahu, they organised a convoy of 30 people on 9 January 2024, demanding that the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza be conditional on the release of the captives.
According to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, this initial convoy was organised by the family of the hostage Omer Wenkert, as well as other families. Some people in the convoy carried the picture of Avinatan Or, who was also kidnapped on 7 October.
While this first convoy was eventually stopped by the police, a movement quickly sprung up to build on its momentum.
Over the next two months, two different groups of protesters formed to demand the return of the hostages.
A first group, called the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, called on its government to hasten the return of the abductees from Gaza by protesting in Tel Aviv.
A second group, more right-wing and more militant, chose to stage protests at the Karem Abu Salem crossing instead, with the goal of blocking the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Among this second group was the Tsav 9 (Order 9) movement, which has been previously linked with a far-right-influenced grouping of hostage families called the Tikva Forum.
While international media did cover the actions and messaging of this second group of protesters, it failed to give a critical perspective on its tactics.
The New Arab (TNA) looked into the right-wing group of protesters stationed at Karem Abu Salem, and identified another movement within it that has evaded public scrutiny so far.
This movement, called Jewish Truth, is linked with a yet-to-be-founded political party, which advocates for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the occupied West Bank to the east of the Jordan River.
Tsav 9 and Jewish Truth used the increased media attention to fundraise for their activities, all the while advocating and contributing to starvation within the Gaza Strip.
In a briefing paper published on 15 March, UK-based charity Oxfam said that “the frequent blocking of the only entry point open from Israel at Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) by Israeli protestors has either caused severe delays or brought the trickle of aid and supplies entering to a complete halt”.
“If protests persist, there will continue to be a breakdown of the supply chain of goods entering Gaza,” the report added.
Meanwhile, both the UN’s Human Rights Commissioner Volker Turk and the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell have accused Israel of using famine as a weapon of war. Turk added that this could amount to a war crime.
Order 9
The movement takes its name from “Order 9”, a category of military order that allows Israel to immediately call up its army reservists for 25 days “when there are urgent security needs, a serious harm to public peace, life or property or [a] fear of such harm”.
While the group is just one among the many who protested the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, most Israeli Jews agree with its position.
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According to a poll conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute between 12 and 15 February, 68% oppose the transfer of humanitarian aid to Gazans.
“You cannot expect the country to fight its enemy and feed it at the same time,” Order 9’s spokesperson Rachel Touitou told TNA during a visit to Karem Abu Salem in late February.
The movement is well-organised. Besides its website and its multiple social media pages, Tsav 9 uses the instant messaging apps WhatsApp and Telegram to coordinate shuttles and ride shares to the crossing for protests.
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The group finances its activities by raising funds on social media, calling on donors to “enlist in the fight remotely”.
One of these fundraisers, hosted on the crowdfunding platform JGive, has raised some NIS 278,686 ($75,947) at time of publication.
Based on posts shared on social media, the group is using at least three other crowdfunding platforms. This suggests that the total amount raised could be much higher.
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Jewish Truth
Another group that has used the blockades to raise funds for its activities is Jewish Truth, an Israeli non-profit.
Wire transfers in support of the aid blockade protests can be made to the bank account of Jewish Truth, according to posts shared on social media.
However, little is known publicly about Jewish Truth.
On 3 March, left-wing Member of Knesset (MK) Ofer Cassif mentioned the group in a letter sent to Israel’s attorney general.
In it, Cassif asked the attorney general to “order an investigation and punishment of the organisers of these illegal blockades, led by the ‘Order 9’ organisation and the ‘Jewish Truth’ association”.
TNA contacted the office of MK Cassif, which said that their complaint was reassigned to Deputy Attorney General Sharon Afek on 12 March.
TNA also contacted the spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice, who referred us to the police. The police responded by referring us to the Office of the Attorney General, which falls under the Ministry of Justice.
Israeli investigative journalist Israel Frey suggested that the mastermind of Jewish Truth is Baruch Ben-Yosef, a suspect in the assassination of Palestinian American activist Alex Odeh in California in 1985.
In a post on X, Frey explained that Jewish Truth had been registered at an address in West Jerusalem, which matches the address of the office of Ben-Yosef.
Based on the charity’s records, however, Ben-Yosef is noted as the legal advisor of the non-profit.
Instead, The New Arab was able to establish links between Jewish Truth and far-right politician Baruch Marzel.
Marzel was the “right-hand man” of US-born rabbi Meir Kahane, and the spokesperson of Israeli Jewish supremacist political party Kach.
Most notably, Marzel was barred from running for elections in the Knesset in 2015. The decision was confirmed by the Israeli Supreme Court in 2019 due to Marzel’s “incitement to racism”.
Since 2004, Marzel has been a proponent of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the occupied West Bank to locations east of the Jordan River.
In November 2022, Marzel announced his intention to form a new, even more extreme party.
The new party would sit to the right of Jewish Power, the far-right party of the Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Itamar Ben-Gvir.
However, as pointed out by Israeli online newspaper The Times Of Israel, it was not clear if the new party had garnered the requisite 100 signatures to establish the new party.
TNA could not establish if Marzel did eventually register a new party since the announcement in 2022.
Meanwhile, the website for Jewish Truth was registered in June 2022.
An archived copy of the website - now suspended - from February 2023 introduces Jewish Truth as a movement whose goal is - among others - “the transfer of the enemies from Israel”.
“There is no difference between Ahmed Tibi, Mansour Abbas, Ofer Cassif and Dov Hanin,” the website adds.
Tibi, Abbas, Cassif and Hanin are current and former Members of the Israeli Knesset. While they all come from different political parties, they are all associated with the Joint List, a political alliance of four Arab-majority Israeli political parties.
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The website also lists Yehezkel Hasson as the CEO of Jewish Truth.
According to the non-profit’s records, Hasson chairs the board of directors at Jewish Truth. Sarah Marzel, Baruch Marzel’s wife, sits on the board too.
The New Arab asked Hasson about his role within Jewish Truth, as well as the movement’s role in the aid blockade protests.
In an email, Mr Hasson said: “The trending and politically biased questions at best indicate ignorance and lack of knowledge. Or lies at worst”.
Mr. Hasson seems to have some political aspirations. On 19 May 2023, he announced his intention to run for election as head of the local council of Kiryat Arba, near Hebron.
Kiryat Arba, like all Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, are illegal under international law.
TNA was not able to determine the amount of funding Jewish Truth has received as part of its fundraising effort during the aid blockades.
Total Impunity
All the groups were able to disrupt the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza with total impunity, leading many, including Israeli officials, to suspect they had the tacit approval of the Israeli government.
According to Lebanese newspaper L'Orient-Le Jour, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich supported the protesters’ actions, after he blocked the transfer of flour shipments into the Gaza Strip.
On 17 February, Haaretz revealed that the police have refrained from taking action against the demonstrators, potentially on the order of minister Ben-Gvir.
The US State Department, for its part, felt compelled to criticise the actions of the Israeli ministers.
In a press conference on 5 March, State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said “you have seen ministers in the Israeli Government block the release of flour from the port at Ashdod; you have seen ministers of the Israeli Government supporting protests that blocked aid from going in to Kerem Shalom”.
He added: “So all of those things are obstacles coming from ministers inside the Israeli Government that we have called out, that we have said are unacceptable, and that we have said should end”.
According to the Turkish state-run Anadolu agency, Miller’s comments raised questions about the legality of the US’ ongoing support of Israel.
Indeed, section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act prohibits the US from providing security assistance or arms sales to any country that “prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance”.
As a consequence, during his State of the Union on 7 March, US President Biden announced his decision “to establish a temporary pier in the Mediterranean on the coast of Gaza that can receive large shipments carrying food, water, medicine, and temporary shelters”.
According to Biden, “a temporary pier will enable a massive increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza every day”.
While some analysts view the pier plan to be, at best, a stunt, the announcement has had a chilling effect on the desire of the protesters to continue their blocking of the entry of aid.
On 17 March, one of the administrators of the coordination groups on WhatsApp referred to Biden’s announcement as a “renewal of international pressure on Israel to be sold to the slaves of Ahasuerus (Joe Biden) and to Haman's anti-Semitic genocidal lust that is spreading throughout the world".
According to the Hebrew Bible, Haman, an adviser in the court of King Ahasuerus, wanted to kill all the Jews in the Persian empire. The Jewish festival of Purim, which occurred in late March this year, commemorates the failure of Haman’s plan.
“Understand that our goal never began and ended with blocking trucks. But our goal is - to bring total victory to Israel,” the post added.
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Indeed, Tsav 9 and Jewish Truth have set their sights on new targets.
On 20 March, members of the Tsav 9 movement protested in front of the West Bank Headquarters of UNRWA, the UN's Palestinian refugee agency, calling for its eviction from its East Jerusalem offices.
Jewish Truth, on the other hand, gathered its top brass over Purim to prepare for their next protest.
On 28 March, the group will stage a protest in front of the house of Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, to demand that Jewish rituals be allowed on the Temple Mount complex.
This article relied on previous reporting in The New Arab by Jerusalem-based journalist Jessica Buxbaum.
Anas Ambri is a researcher at The New Arab Investigative Unit.
Follow him on Twitter: @AnasAmbri