'We conquer Gaza - and then what?' Peace activists struggle to be heard above the clamour for war

Noy Katsman knew the eulogy for their murdered brother would anger some who came to mourn, but did not want the violence of Hayim Katsman's death to eclipse his life as a peace activist.

- Emma Graham-Harrison, Quique Kierszenbaum

Grief and loss at Hayim's slaughter was magnified by watching Israel launch a war in his name, said Noy. So at the funeral, relying on a Jewish tradition of respect for the bereaved, Noy called for it to stop.

"Do not use our death and our pain to bring the death and pain of other people and other families," Noy told the crowd, as the government bombed Gaza and prepared for a massive ground invasion. "I have no doubt that even in the face of Hamas people that murdered him ... he would still speak out against the killing and violence of innocent people." Arguing against retaliation in Gaza, as Israel reels from the scale and brutality of the massacres by Hamas on 7 October, is unpopular.

At one point in the eulogy the mourners tutted in anger and disapproval. But afterwards Hayim's friends came to thank Noy.

"One told me: 'It's exactly what your brother would have wanted you to say

Hayim and Noy are part of Israel's relatively small community of leftwingers, peace activists and human rights campaigners, people who broadly believe their country cannot fight its way to peace.

They were hit particularly hard, personally and politically, by the massacres on 7 October, as Hamas militants targeted places that were historically centres of leftwing Zionism, where many have friends and relatives.

"In the communities affected in the south, the kibbutzim, where people were injured and kidnapped and slaughtered by Hamas, so many of them fought for peace, so many of them were dreaming of a different future," said Avner Gvaryahu, the executive director of Breaking the Silence, a group founded by Israeli combat veterans to document military abuses in the occupied Palestinian territories.