Under the slogan “Stop Israel”, the pro-democratic protest movement intends to take more than a million people to the streets this Sunday, the 7th, to demand the dissolution of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. . Nine months after the start of the war in the Gaza Strip, Israeli protesters demand an agreement that allows the return of all hostages and also the call for early elections.
The protests began at dawn, at 6:29 am, the exact time of the start of the attack by Hamas and other militias that caused the death of around 1,200 Israelis on October 7, 2023 and which also resulted in hundreds of hostages. Groups of activists began a demonstration in front of the homes of 18 Knesset deputies, as well as ministers from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government.
According to the Times of Israel, among the homes affected by the demonstrations are those of Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana and the ministers of Defense, Yoav Gallant, Foreign Affairs, Israel Katz, Finance, Nir Barkat, from Transport, Miri Regev, from Agriculture, Avi Dichter, and from National Security for the Negev and the Galilee, Yitzhak Wasserlauf.
Shouts such as “Wake up, the country is worth more than this”, “nine months of absolute failure” or “there is blood on your hands” point to members of the government being responsible for the deaths of more than 1,600 Israelis in nine months – between the victims of the October 7 attack and the soldiers killed in Gaza – and the fate of the 116 hostages still held in the enclave.
On the outskirts of Tel Aviv, protesters also gathered in front of the residence of the president of the Histadrut (the federation of public sector unions in Israel), Arnon Bar David, demanding that he schedule a general strike in the country, to put pressure on the calling of early elections. “Enough talk, it’s time to act”, read posters in front of Bar David’s house, who in May stated that the Government had lost the people’s trust, but said it was necessary to wait for the right moment for any “drastic action”, referring to a strike.
The day of protests will culminate tonight with a large demonstration in front of Netanyahu’s residence in the Rehavia neighborhood of Jerusalem and in front of the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv, the main headquarters of the army and the Ministry of Defense, where the families and loved ones of the 251 hostages captured by Hamas on October 7th will demonstrate, of which 116 are still being kidnapped. “Our demand is the simplest of all: return the hostages and return the mandate. From then on, it will be what the people decide,” said one of the leaders of the protest movement, Moshe Radman, on the social network X.
“So that a government of Kahanists – a Jewish supremacist movement considered terrorist in Israel, of which members of the executive are sympathizers – does not annul the hostage return agreement. So that they do not overturn the country”, appealed Shikma Bressler, another well-known face of the pro-democracy protest movement that was born in 2023 against judicial reform.
Protesters also intend to gather at intersections to block traffic and organize caravans of vehicles to block the country’s main highways, especially those connecting Tel Aviv to other cities on the Mediterranean coast, such as Herzeliya, Netanya, Caesarea and Haifa, as well as Jerusalem. “Special protest actions will take place throughout the day and severe traffic congestion is expected on Israel’s main road arteries,” declared the protest movement.
Last Thursday, the 4th, thousands of people had already demonstrated in Jerusalem and in other Israeli cities against the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing him of sabotaging the liberation agreement. of hostages and plunging Israel into the abyss.
