Well over 100,000 Israelis attended protests in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and dozens of other cities across Israel on Saturday night — far more than at recent rallies — as anger over the government’s resumption of fighting in Gaza and the planned removal of the country’s top gatekeepers boiled over, reports Times of Israel.
At Tel Aviv’s Habima Square, tens of thousands filled the plaza and spilled out into the surrounding streets for the weekly anti-government demonstration — a marked increase from previous weekends, when roughly half of the square remained empty.
The surge in attendance was sparked by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bid to fire Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and assert greater control over the levers of power.
The protest at Habima Square preceded a second demonstration at nearby Hostages Square, where the public answered a call from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum for a “rage rally” after the fragile two-month ceasefire in the Gaza Strip shattered earlier this week when Israel launched a large-scale aerial offensive followed by a renewed ground campaign.
“The return to fighting could kill the living hostages and cause the fallen to disappear,” the forum warned in its rallying cry to the public. “The only fight should take place in the negotiating room, for the immediate return of all the hostages.”
“Hostages come first,” read the statement. “We can’t give up on them now.”
Habima Square turned into a sea of Israeli flags interspersed with the banners and flags of center-left opposition parties Yesh Atid and the Democrats, whose respective heads, Yair Lapid and Yair Golan, both addressed the teeming crowd.
A large screen mounted on the stage read “Stopping the dictatorship mania,” and protesters chanted: “Netanyahu is an abandoner. Netanyahu isn’t competent!”
Bd-pratidin English/Tanvir Raihan
