Tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrated in Tel Aviv and across Israel on Saturday night, in support of a hostage-ceasefire deal to enable the release of hostages held captive by the Hamas
..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...terror group 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...
since October 7 and amid the threat of a major assault from Hezbollah in Leb
...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
Organizers claimed there were hundreds of thousands at the Tel Aviv protests and tens of thousands more nationwide, though there were no official figures on the turnout.
Tens of thousands it is — or perhaps even less. But if even the Times of Israel does not believe the protestors’ claims, then it cannot be so.
Protests calling for a hostage deal have been held every Saturday night since the first weeks of the ongoing war against Hamas, steadily growing in numbers.Waxing and waning, actually, with increases when the marketing team can push something interesting to pique interest among the rubes. Otherwise it’s just the same cadre of professional protesters and their useful idiots that have been protesting against Bibi since 2015 and before. They really resent the labour socialists having lost control of the reins of government — they thought they’d driven him out of office in 1999, but ten years later he got himself reelected, just to bedevil them.
For months, they were held alongside separate, anti-government protests, but the two demonstrations joined together three weeks ago, after the Israeli military recovered the bodies of six Israeli hostages who had been murdered days earlier, sparking outrage across the country.Eli Albag, whose daughter Liri was kidnapped from the IDF’s Nahal Oz base on October 7, told the Tel Aviv rally on Saturday that far-right ministers in the coalition have been intentionally preventing a deal. "It’s clear to us all that Hamas is to blame, but throughout the year there were opportunities for a deal, and you [the government] didn’t take them."
The rally was also addressed by Shahar Mor, whose uncle Avraham Munder was kidnapped from his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz and died in Hamas captivity after not receiving vital medication.
Police later arrested Mor, though it was not immediately clear why. Demonstrators — including Labor MK Gilad Kariv — surrounded a police cruiser in Tel Aviv and blocked it from moving immediately after the arrest. A statement from the police said Mor was arrested near the home of the defense minister, and that he would be released and summoned tomorrow for questioning.
In Caesarea, where Haaretz estimated that about a thousand protesters gathered in front of Netanyahu’s private residence, demonstrators blocked traffic until they were forcibly dispersed by police.
Among those arrested was former IDF chief of staff Dan Halutz, whom police lifted by his arms and feet, as other demonstrators shouted at the officers, "Aren’t you ashamed?"
Police also made arrests in Jerusalem, organizers said.
In Tel Aviv, the central protest dispersed around 10 p.m., though organizers said some thousands of people continued to demonstrate on Namir Road, where police put out a small bonfire.
Also on Namir Road, on which a yellow ribbon was painted with the words, "Thou shalt not abandon," cars burned in the October 7 attack were carried by other vehicles in a procession, covered in banners denouncing the government and calling for a hostage deal.
A similar convoy of burned cars paraded through Caesarea.
In Tel Aviv, protesters stopped at the junction of Namir Road and Pinkas Street, near the private residence of MK Gideon Sa’ar of the New Hope party, who is considering leaving the opposition and joining Netanyahu’s government.
Earlier Saturday, Sa’ar announced that he would not accept Netanyahu’s offer to become defense minister in place of Yoav Gallant, a move that the Hostage Families Forum hailed in a statement blasting the potential new addition to the cabinet.
Sa’ar, the statement said, "is among the opponents of the sacred obligation for a deal to return the hostages." A man like Sa’ar, it said, "cannot serve as Israel’s defense minister and cannot lead the Israel Defense Forces, whose entire ethos is based on mutual obligation and the imperative to leave nobody behind."
Protests were also held in Haifa, Beersheba, Rehovot, Hadera, Kfar Saba, Netanya, and numerous highway junctions across the country.