Next Saturday, August 19, a demonstration will be held outside of Military Prison 6 near Atlit, in solidarity with two occupation refusers, Noa Gur-Golan and Hadas Tal.

Gur Golan is in prison for the second time, so far for 44 days, and Tal received her first sentence of 20 days – for their refusal to be conscripted to Israel’s occupation military force over the Palestinian people. “We will be protesting against their imprisonment and against the occupation,” said spokespersons for Yesh Gvul and Mesarvot.

Hadas Tal, 18, lives in Kibbutz Yifat in the Jezreel Valley in northern Israel. She has a twin sister who is supposed to finish basic training in the army— who tried unsuccessfully to get special permission to see Hadas off to prison — and a younger brother who is about to start the 10th grade.

Vigil in support of Noa and Hadas, Saturday, August 19, at 6:00 pm outside Military Prison 6

In her refusal statement, Hadas wrote: “Until the 10th grade I didn’t know there’s an occupation. I recently found a map I had drawn in the 9th grade — the occupied territories did not appear there, only empty space. However, in the 10th grade I began to develop a political consciousness. I read articles on the website ‘Local Call,’ testimonies from ‘Breaking the Silence,’ posts on social media, and I was exposed to a reality I hadn’t previously know – the occupation; the helplessness of a civilian population controlled by soldiers. In particular I recall the revelation that so close to me there is a world where soldiers who do not speak your language enter your family home in the middle of the night as a routine thing. By the 11th grade, I already knew that I would refuse to be conscripted into the military. I refuse to accept reality as it is. I refuse to accept that there is ‘no choice.’ I refuse because the problem lies in blind obedience, in the loyalty to the state instead of to its citizens and residents, and in the acceptance of reality as it is. I refuse to be a tool of the government. I refuse because joining the military is not a foregone conclusion, and should not be. Why should I enlist and serve an organization that harms Israeli society, human society, and nature?”