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Protests erupted in Israeli cities over the weekend, beginning on Saturday night. The families and their supporters, who have generally remained nonpartisan, made a rare decision to join antigovernment protests in Tel Aviv to call for a deal. Police said they detained several protesters and used water cannons to disperse the crowds.
On Sunday, leaders of the protest groups began a planned multiday demonstration at the gates of Israel’s parliament in Jerusalem to demand elections and a hostage-release agreement. Thousands of Israelis blocked roads and marched to Netanyahu’s residence in one of the most vigorous demonstrations since the war started, according to images released by protest organizations.
Israeli negotiators traveled to Cairo on Sunday for another round of cease-fire talks.
Meanwhile, the debate over military service for young ultra-Orthodox Israelis is coming to a head after Israel’s top court ordered the government to stop funding stipends for religious students who will be subject to the draft after a waiver expired Sunday.
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Protesters block major Tel Aviv highway, clashes erupt between police and protesters as families of hostages held in Gaza announce escalation in fight for hostage release deal and thousands demonstrate across Israel against the government, for early elections
Some 20 relatives of Israeli hostages being held in Gaza called to immediately replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Saturday evening, while thousands of people protested against the government and in support of releasing the hostages in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, Be’er Sheva, Caesarea and other cities.
The families of hostages called on ministers Benny Gantz and Gadi Eizenkot, as well as other Knesset members, to join them in ousting Netanyahu, who they accused of intentionally undermining a deal to free their loved ones.
Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan is being held in Gaza, said in a special media address that they “are forced today to begin a new phase in our just fight, from this moment on, we will take action to immediately remove [Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] from power.”
After you abandoned our family members on October 7, after 176 days in which you failed to secure a hostage release deal, and because you are constantly torpedoing this deal – it is clear that you are the obstacle preventing this deal,” added Zangauker.
The main protest in Tel Aviv, where thousands of protesters have gathered, is taking place amid warning letters sent on Friday by the Tel Aviv District Police Commander to several prominent demonstrators. In the letters titled “Imminent Risk to Human Life,” the district commander warned the demonstrators against blocking roads and setting tires on fire.
Zangauker added later Saturday during her speech at the main Tel Aviv protest on Kaplan Street that “I voted for you, Mr. Prime Minister … You no longer have a public and moral mandate to determine such fateful matters for the State of Israel … I am revoking from you the mandate I gave you in the election.”
Yasmin Porat, who escaped from Pessi Cohen’s house in Kibbutz Be’eri before it was shelled, joined the anti-government protest in Tel Aviv and said that “For six months the government, which has the blood of my partner and thousands of others who were murdered on its hands, has been waging this cursed war. What are they thinking? That they’ll take 134 coffins out of Gaza and declare victory?”
“Without the hostages there is no victory, and there will be no hope for the country. Only when the last hostage is here will the State of Israel be resurrected … This is the most important struggle in the history of the country,” continued Porat.
Ran Har Nevo, a prominent leader of the anti-government protest movement, said at the protest – where demonstrators lit bonfires outside the Israeli army’s military HQ in the city – that the promotion of the judicial overhaul last year played a role in the October 7 attack: “They acted like madmen, with disdain for the rule of law, drunk on power, and they neglected our security.”
“In order to survive in power, [Netanyahu] trained the messianic fringes,” said Har Nevo, adding that even now, the prime minister continues to harm the country through the “evasion law,” by violating the police’s independence, and by attacking the judicial system.
Haaretz columnist and former Israeli Consul in New York, Alon Pinkas, said at the Tel Aviv protest that there is “One person who disrespects the hostages, disrespects the IDF, disrespects presidents of the U.S., clashes with the world.”
“What do you do with such a person? Elections,” said Pinkas. “When this person refuses to take responsibility … Openly lies about what he has been doing for years regarding Hamas … What do we do with him? Elections.
The weekly demonstration of the Hostage Families Forum took place simultaneous to the anti-government protests Saturday night at the Hostages Square, outside the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. After 20 minutes of fiery speeches, the family members and freed hostages implored the audience to take action: To take to the streets and make their voices heard. The crowd was directed to the Israeli army’s military HQ in Tel Aviv and Dizengoff Street in the city center.
The police had prepared Saturday in Tel Aviv with reinforced forces ahead of the expected protests, and Begin Road was later blocked by police. Lawmaker Gilad Kariv took to the microphone at the protest outside the military headquarters in Tel Aviv and asked police to remove the trucks from Begin Road and allow people to join the protest. Clashes broke out between the police and those arriving from Hostages Square to Kaplan street, during which one police officer pushed Eli Elbag, the father of hostage Liri Elbag.
The police attempted to disperse protesters from Begin Road and further clashes occurred, after which the police used water canons as well as sound cannons – strong loudspeakers – to break up the protests for around two minutes. Demonstrators pushed through a police blockade and blocked Ayalon Highway in central Tel Aviv later Saturday night.
Police announced that they have arrested 16 protesters for “attempting to block Ayalon Highway,” and fined nine for “disrupting traffic.”
Hundreds gathered earlier Saturday evening outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s private residence in the Israeli town of Caesarea, demanding to hold an election ahead of its planned date.
Ex-IDF intelligence chief Amos Malka said at the Caesarea demonstration that “Netanyahu’s destructive mindset requires a declaration of cognitive and leadership incapacity,” adding that every additional day the prime minister remains in office poses “a clear and immediate risk” to Israel’s security.
For a whole week, Netanyahu is only concerned with the draft-dodging law to preserve the coalition, not with kidnappings, not with the day after, and not with the American initiative,” added Malka.
Hundreds of protesters also marched towards central Haifa calling for a hostage release deal. Noam Dan, a relative of hostage Ofer Kalderon, said at the protest that “For 176 days we have insisted on real change, to be rescued, for responsibility to be taken. I’ve spoken nicely and politely, and I’ve spoken angrily … I realized that nothing would help our hostages.”
We need agreements that will save lives, revenge is not a work plan,” continued Dan, adding that “we have 176 reasons to remove Netanyahu from power and save ourselves from ourselves.”
Fighter pilot Col. (res.) Nir Yarkoni said that “Netanyahu is dangerous not only for the hostages, but … for the existence of the State of Israel” and added that “the most efficient and safe way to return the hostages alive is to replace the prime minister immediately.”
“Emergency times call for emergency measures to be taken. We will not survive [until elections next year] … The hostages will not survive until then,” Yarkoni added.
In Be’er Sheva, speakers included a Bedouin-Israeli city council member, and a Knesset Member from the opposition party Yesh Atid. Protesters also blocked Rager Boulevard in the southern Israeli city. In Jerusalem, around two thousand people protested at Paris Square in the city center, some of whom later marched to the President’s Residence.
On Sunday, the major protest organizations are expected to demonstrate in Jerusalem, and some of them will camp in tents near the Knesset. In the evening hours, the demonstrators are expected to march to the prime minister’s residence on Azza Street in the city center.
In recent weeks, clashes have unfolded between police officers and demonstrators over attempts to block Begin Road and Ayalon Highway in central Tel Aviv. Last week, 15 demonstrators were arrested during protests in the city, and four demonstrators, including two relatives of hostages, were detained in Tel Aviv for blocking a road. According to protest organizations’ records, around 120 demonstrators were arrested, detained, or investigated in February and March.
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One of the largest thermal power plants in Ukraine’s east has been completely destroyed following Russian shelling, according to Ukrainian energy company Centrenergo.
The announcement came just a day after Moscow carried out a massive barrage of missile and drone strikes across central and western Ukraine, the latest in a series of escalating attacks targeting the already damaged energy infrastructure.
The Zmiiv Thermal Power Plant in Kharkiv region was badly hit on March 22, and the company has been assessing the damage since then.
“The consequences were destructive, the station is destroyed,” Andriy Hota, chairman of Centrenergo supervisory board told Interfax Ukraine news agency on Saturday.
“There were many direct hits. Everything we repaired in preparation for the winter was destroyed.”
Power outage schedules are still in place for around 120,000 people in the Kharkiv region. Some 700,000 people lost electricity in the immediate aftermath of the strike on the Zmiiv plant.
“We urge our partners to respond quickly and decisively to Russia’s intensified bombing campaign against Ukraine’s critical infrastructure,” Mr Zelensky said yesterday in a call for more air defences.
The Ukrainian president has said that his troops, already on a defensive footing, will be forced to retreat if the promised US aid package held up in congress is not delivered.
www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/03/30/russia-ukraine-war-latest-us-aid/
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Israel has seized the opportunity to intensify the occupation, with mass arrests of Palestinians, hundreds killed, a host of new illegal settler outposts and roads. Shepherds expelled from their homes, violent settlers rampaging in uniform. All under the aegis of the war
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A year ago this week, Israelis took to the streets and felt that they had saved Israeli democracy. What became known as “Gallant Night,” not because of any gallantry, but after the defense minister whose firing Benjamin Netanyahu had just announced, wasn’t exactly the victory the tens of thousands protesting around Netanyahu’s house in Jerusalem and on Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv, hoped for. Netanyahu and his coalition would continue trying to assault Israel’s limited and fragile democracy. In many ways they still are. But it was still a pivotal moment.
The outpouring of public anger, backed up the next day by the announcement of a general strike, forced Netanyahu to stop in his tracks, agree to convene talks with the opposition over a more consensual judicial reform and ultimately rescind the firing of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant who had warned that he couldn’t vote in favor of legislation that was dividing the Israel Defense Forces.
It wasn’t the end. After a couple of months, the talks broke down, the coalition passed legislation eliminating the High Court’s use of the reasonability standard to hold the government to account and six months later, the High Court ruled, by the smallest of margins, that it was unconstitutional to deny its use. It was ultimately a victory, since the court’s powers remain unchanged, but only thanks to a majority of relatively liberal judges on the bench. Now two of them have retired and Justice Minister Yariv Levin, frustrated at the way his plans to eviscerate the judiciary have come to naught, is refusing to allow the appointment of new Supreme Court judges.
Law, Power, and Justice 