for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending.

organised campaign encouragingyoung Israelis to refuse to show up for military service, have followed.

Perhaps sensing the direction the wind was blowing, the leader of Israel’s left-wing Democrats Party, Yair Golan – who initially supported the war and took a hardline position on allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza – launched astark broadside against the conflictearlier this month, claiming that Israel risked becoming a “pariah state” that killed “babies as a hobby” while giving itself the aim of “expelling populations”.

While welcomed by some, the comments of the former army major-general were rounded upon by others. Speaking at a conference in southern Israel alongside noted antiwar lawmaker Ofer Cassif, Golan was heckled and called a traitor by far-right members of the audience, before he had to be escorted off the premises by security.Cassif, who refers to himself as an anti-Zionist, has long attracted the outrage of mainstream Israeli society for his loud denunciation of the way Israel treats Palestinians.

“There have always been threats against me,” Cassif, who has been alone among Israeli lawmakers in opposing the war from its onset, told Al Jazeera. “I can’t walk down my own street. I was attacked twice before October 7 and it’s gotten much worse since.

“But it’s not just me. All the peace activists risk being physically attacked or threatened, even the families of the hostages are at risk of attack by these bigots,” he said.Meanwhile, in Kenya, the aftermath of the 2024 anti-finance bill protests is haunting the country. In the absence of a well organised political opposition, which is stymied by frenetic

and horse-trading, protesters and youth activists have become the country’s unofficial political opposition.The youth have borne the brunt of political violence during last year’s protests, which killed at least

. Kidnappings and abductions of protesters spiked after the demonstrations, and activist groups alleged that some people remain unaccounted for despite President William Ruto’s assertion to the contrary.In Burundi, people continue to live under the shadow of police excesses and in fear of the possibility of war with its expansionist neighbours.