Tzav 9 to Resume Protests Against Aid to Hamas

Photo Credit: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90

Tzav 9 activists block the entrance to Ashdod Port during a protest against aid trucks entering the Gaza Strip, Feb. 1, 2024.

Israel’s Tzav 9 (“Order 9”) protest group that opposes humanitarian aid going to Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip announced on Wednesday the resumption of its activities after a five-month hiatus.

“Tomorrow, Thursday, 411 days since the start of the war, we will meet at 9:30 a.m. at the [Kibbutz] Urim gas station,” the movement announced. “We will continue to fight until the 101 hostages are returned home.”

“Whoever controls the aid controls the Strip. Stop strengthening Hamas, and make sure that the aid will not get to them,” Tzav 9 stated.

“We will go to the field for the same purpose for which we established Tzav 9. The purpose of blocking the trucks was to demand the most elementary thing—stop strengthening Hamas!” it vowed.

Tzav 9 suspended its protests in June as the strategy no longer seemed efficient. “Gaza is flooded with humanitarian aid from all directions,” spokesperson Rachel Touitou told JNS at the time. “We are moving forward with other strategies such as meeting with ministers.”

That same month, the U.S. government sanctioned Tzav 9, describing it as “a violent, extremist Israeli group that has been blocking, harassing and damaging convoys carrying lifesaving humanitarian assistance.”

Tzav 9 was designated pursuant to U.S. President Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14115, which states that sanctions can be applied to individuals who “threaten the peace, security or stability” of Judea and Samaria.

In July, the European Council, Brussels’ top decision-making body, also blacklisted the movement under its human rights sanctions regime.

Touitou denied Tzav 9’s involvement in violent acts, telling JNS that the group’s members “deplore the torching of the trucks and the violence.”

Most of Tzav 9’s protests have taken place inside the Jewish state’s pre-1967 borders, including at the Kerem Shalom Crossing and Ashdod Port near Gaza. The group’s members come from all over the country.

Activist Yael Sabrigo, the niece of Lior Rudaeff, who was murdered by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, and whose body is being held in Gaza, told the Ynet news outlet in June that she was shocked by the sanctions.

“We do not engage in violence. We respect the police and the drivers—we did not have anything to do with setting the trucks on fire,” she said.

Tzav 9’s move came ahead of a Thursday deadline set by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the Israel Defense Forces to prepare plans aimed at replacing Hamas in the distribution of aid supplies.

“I requested that the IDF come up with an orderly plan to eradicate the governmental capacities, which is also related to restricting their ability to distribute food, to distribute humanitarian aid,” Netanyahu said on Monday during a 40-signature debate, which the opposition can call once a month and in which the premier is legally obliged to participate.

“We want to ensure the distribution of humanitarian aid so that it will not be looted by Hamas and others, and of course, we want to return the remaining hostages,” the prime minister explained in his remarks.

Hamas steals at least 60% of the aid intended for noncombatants, Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) head Ronen Bar revealed earlier this year.

Last week, the government approved a series of measures that will vastly expand the entry of aid ahead of a deadline set by the United States to implement a dozen policy changes or risk a possible arms embargo.