Marking six months since Hamas
...the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...’s October 7 onslaught, demonstrators turned out Saturday night for weekly rallies across Israel to protest against the current government, demand elections and an immediate hostage deal.
Tel Aviv’s massive anti-government rally, which was attended by tens of thousands of protesters, saw some demonstrators skirmish with police, with at least five arrests. There was also a car-ramming in the city that injured five demonstrators, an incident that drew broad condemnations and concerns over deepening societal tensions as the war launched in response to the Hamas attack grinds on. The higher turnout in Tel Aviv this week prompted organizers to hold the protest at Democracy Square, the intersection of Begin and Kaplan Streets, which last year became iconic for its role as the backdrop to the anti-judicial overhaul protests each Saturday night prior to October 7. According to an estimate by Channel 13 news , some 45,000 people protested in Tel Aviv on Saturday night, while organizers claimed 100,000 were in attendance. Thousands more joined the call for new elections in Jerusalem, Haifa and some dozens of other cities and towns across the country, including Caesarea, where protesters rallied outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s private home.
In Tel Aviv, swaths of protesters carrying Israeli flags and signs against the current government chanted "Elad, we’re sorry," mourning slain hostage Elad Katzir, whose body was recovered in an operation announced by the IDF earlier in the day. The army said Katzir was murdered in mid-January by Paleostinian Islamic Jihad
...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah...
.
After the speeches ended in Democracy Square, masses of protesters marched to Begin Street, where skirmishes broke out between police and some demonstrators. During the festivities, The Times of Israel witnessed one protester being forcefully arrested.
One officer had her nose broken by a protester who was shoved by another officer, falling backwards and accidentally hitting her face with his elbow. Law enforcement released a statement charging the protester had punched her in the face, but later retracted claim, acknowledging the demonstrator did not act with "malicious intent" after a video of the incident was shared widely online.
As a group of protesters proceeded northward on Begin Street, they marched toward the headquarters of the powerful Histadrut labor federation on Arlozorov Street instead of attempting to block Ayalon Highway, as is typical on Saturday nights.
Outside the union building, demonstrators lit a bonfire and chanted "Strike now!" demanding that chairman Arnon Bar-David declare a large-scale strike to pressure the government into agreeing to a deal for the release of the hostages. The union chief declared a day-long strike last year in opposition to the government’s judicial overhaul efforts, a move joined by airport workers at Ben Gurion Airport and numerous other labor organizations.
At around 10 p.m, a driver briefly got out of his car to curse the protesters before being waved on by police. He then suddenly tore through the crowd with his car, hitting five people, including a 50-year-old woman who was moderately injured and taken to Ichilov Hospital. The four others endured minor injuries.
According to police, law enforcement managed to stop and arrest the driver soon after he accelerated his vehicle into the crowd. He was later identified as a former soccer player and coach. The incident was denounced by numerous Israeli leaders, who warned against a return to the political and societal tensions that roiled the country before the October 7 atrocities.
Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi of Netanyahu’s Likud party said Israel’s civil discourse has tanked, which he blamed on "leftist leaders, inside and outside the coalition."
"Don’t run over protesters. Period. Don’t attack coppers, period. Don’t throw burning torches at the prime minister’s house. Period," wrote Karhi on X in reference to protests in Jerusalem which have turned rowdy.
"Even if the reality of allowing disturbances and blocking the roads is intolerable, one must exercise restraint and be very careful," he continued. "This deterioration to October 6, let by leftist leaders, inside and outside the coalition, does not help anyone and tears us apart in the middle of a war."
The protest in Tel Aviv continued until around midnight, when it was dispersed. Police arrested four protesters on Arlozorov Street. One protester, an elderly man, was knocked down by a police horse.
In Haifa, Carmit Palty Katzir, the sister of slain hostage Elad Katzir, gave a speech in which she blamed the government for the death of her brother. The People’s Protest, a Haifa group behind the march, published her statement on Facebook just ahead of the demonstration.
At the hostages’ families protest in Jerusalem, which numbered around 2,000 people, organizer Tom Barkai quoted Palty-Katzir in her opening speech outside the Prime Minister’s Residence.
The order of the two protests held in Jerusalem was flipped this week, with hundreds of protesters starting at the hostages’ families rally before marching to the President’s Residence to hear from explicitly anti-government activists and speakers. The two rallies were relatively muted, and the crowd outside the President’s Residence dispersed almost immediately after speeches ended.
Outside the President’s Residence, attorney Nitzan Caspi Shilony called for new elections and derided the government’s use of the term "unity," which she accused politicians of using as a tool to deride the protests against the current government.
In Caesarea, protesters demanding elections and Netanyahu’s resignation flanked police barricades while demonstrating a few hundred meters from the his private residence. At least one person was detained.
Separately, some 300 people attended a rally at Sha’ar Hanegev Junction near Sderot. Unlike most other rallies on Saturday, organizers of the protest in the Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council described their agenda as nonpartisan. The rally "commemorates six months since the war broke out" and the fact that some 130 people are "held hostage in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
," organizers wrote.
On Sunday, April 7, many demonstrators were expected to gather once again in Jerusalem for a protest in front of the Knesset building under the slogan: "National victory = the return of the hostages." Ahead of the event, organizers were arranging rides to Jerusalem from across the country.
