Thousands of demonstrators packed streets outside the Knesset in Jerusalem on Sunday evening in a mass protest demanding the government resign, marking the first day in what is slated to be a four-day event.
The organizers of the protest called for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government to step down, for Israel to hold early elections, and for the country’s leaders to agree to a hostage deal that will bring about the release of the 130 captives held in Gaza since Hamas’s devastating October 7 attack on the country.
The gathering outside the Knesset was spearheaded by a coalition of anti-government protest movements, including the Kaplan Force and Brothers in Arms, who plan to hold four days of protests and gatherings in Jerusalem this week.
The rally was the largest protest held since October 7, with the war putting a stop to months-long demonstrations against the government and its efforts at the time to overhaul the judiciary. Organizers claimed more than 100,000 people had taken part, while media outlets reported turnout in the tens of thousands.
Many attendees at the rally in Jerusalem expressed disbelief that Netanyahu was still in power, and that the country hasn’t held elections yet, six months after the Hamas terror onslaught, the worst single attack on the country in its history.
“It is beyond belief that this country, which was so successful… is being led down [this] path by one man and his henchmen,” said one demonstrator.
Academics from the Day After movement set out from the Givat Ram campus of Hebrew University in Jerusalem ahead of a protest against the government, March 31, 2024. (Tanya Zion-Walkdoks/Israel Pro-Democracy Protest Movement)
“We need elections,” another participant said. “The government doesn’t have the public’s faith. And [now] they want to pass a law allowing one in five people to avoid army service,” he added, referring to potential legislation of IDF service exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox community.
After the main protest died down, some participants moved to block the nearby Begin highway, including lighting a number of fires on the road, and were physically removed by police officers, while others clashed with police while attempting to block the entrance to Jerusalem next to the Chords Bridge. At least one protester was arrested, police said.
During the clashes, police deployed foul-smelling skunk water on protesters, Hebrew media reported.
The gathering of protest movements is planning four days of rallies and activities throughout Jerusalem this week, including a tent city set up near the Knesset. On Monday, events are scheduled with former IDF chief and ex-defense minister Moshe Ya’alon and Labor activist Yaya Fink, ahead of an evening rally with comments from ex-MK and former deputy IDF chief Yair Golan, as well as family members of those killed on October 7 and the grandson of hostage Chaim Peri. On Tuesday, former prime minister Ehud Barak is slated to address the rally, as is Merav Svirsky, whose parents were murdered on October 7 and whose brother Itay Svirsky was taken hostage and killed in Gaza.
100 אלף מפגינים בירושלים.
בחירות עכשיו, את כולם עכשיו.קרדיט: אמיר גולדשטיין pic.twitter.com/0GR4xNsDnm
— yayafink (יאיא פינק) (@yayafink) March 31, 2024
As night fell Sunday, protesters set up more than 100 tents outside the Knesset to sleep at the scene.
“I have no other choice. I think that we have a ‘crime’ minister,” said Devora, a protester from the northern village of Timrat, as she placed her belongings in her tent. “We’re in the middle of a terrible hell. Enough. How much more can we take,” she asked. “There will be nothing left.”
The line of tents reached nearly between the Knesset and the Foreign Ministry, several blocks away. Next to the individual sleeping tents were larger logistics tents set up by the various protest movements involved in the demonstration, as well as two life-size mock-ups of tanks brought by veterans of the Yom Kippur War.
Addressing the demonstrators on Sunday, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid proclaimed that all that matters to Netanyahu is staying in office, accusing the prime minister of focusing more on keeping his coalition partners happy than helping citizens impacted by the war.
“The lights have been on in his office for a week,” Lapid sayid as Netanyahu works “to make sure that the ultra-Orthodox can continue to evade conscription despite the war.”
“The IDF is begging for more soldiers [but] they don’t care,” said Lapid, referencing the crisis engulfing the coalition over the issue of Haredi enlistment in the military.
“If a hundredth, a thousandth, a fraction of this organizational efficiency had been devoted to the hostages, or the evacuees, or the management of the war, or the economy, our situation would be completely different, [but] there is only one thing that is important to Netanyahu — to stay in office,” Lapid added.
“This week, they are taking the Knesset into recess in the middle of the war,” he said. “The reservists don’t get a break. The hostages don’t get a break. It doesn’t interest them. Everyone who sits in this government today, the responsibility is on them. Every minister who doesn’t resign, every Knesset member who doesn’t vote against the government, who doesn’t help us send them home, it’s on them. This stain will stick to them for the rest of their life.”
The opposition leader alleged those affected by the war were “transparent” to the government.
“We can’t live like this. We can’t go on like this. We don’t have to either. We can live differently, we can continue otherwise. As long as we are a democracy, there is a tool that changes reality. It’s called elections.”
In response, the gathered crowd screamed back: “Elections now! Elections now!”
Protest leader Moshe Radman, left, with Labor MK Na’ama Lazimi, at a protest outside the Knesset on March 31, 2024. (Sam Sokol/Times of Israel)
Protest leader Moshe Radman said on the sidelines of the gathering that Netanyahu’s government does not represent the Israeli public, and demanded that the Knesset postpone its upcoming break.
“First of all we want elections because we think this government is not representing the public and second of all we think it is not a good time to take a recess when the hostages are still there,” Radman said.
Last week, the Knesset House Committee voted to approve a six-week break despite vociferous objections by parties in both the opposition and coalition. The recess is slated to run from April 7 to May 19.
“Every three days a hostage dies. They are leaving for 42 days. That means that 14 hostages will die,” Radman said. It was not clear what those figures were based on.
Radman told The Times of Israel that the prime minister “can’t listen because he’s in the middle of [ensuring] his [political] survival [and the preservation] of his leadership, but I hope that the people in the coalition will hear us and will understand that the only way Israel will recover from this disaster is by elections.”
Protesters gather outside the Knesset in Jerusalem at the start of a four-day protest event against the government and in support of a hostage deal, March 31, 2024. (Sam Sokol/Times of Israel)
Labor MK Gilad Kariv told The Times of Israel at the protest that the Israeli public has “woken up” and wants a new prime minister.
“It is clear that in order to win and in order to bring back the hostages we need a different leadership,” said Kariv. “And today there is a very clear call going out that represents large parts of the Israeli public — we need to go to elections. This is not a Six Day War [which Israel fought in 1967], it’s a ‘Six Month War’ and this is the time for elections — after we end and complete the next hostages deal.”
Labor MK Naama Lazimi told The Times of Israel that the throngs of protesters were “saving the country.”
Asked if the protests would have an impact, Lazimi responded that a year of anti-government protests in 2023 helped to block Netanyahu and Justice Minister Yariv Levin from passing their controversial judicial overhaul program.
“Yariv Levin wanted a dictatorship within two months. So certainly protests help,” she said. “They saved Israel from dictatorship and they will help now.”
Protesters gather on Jerusalem’s Zussman Street ahead of a demonstration against the government, March 31, 2024. (Amos Gil/Israel Pro-Democracy Protest Movement)
Asked by reporters at a press conference Sunday evening as the protest began about the possibility of an election, Netanyahu argued such a move would paralyze the country — “in the midst of the war, the moment before victory” — for up to eight months.
“It would paralyze negotiations for freeing our hostages and would bring an end to the war before the goals are completely achieved,” he said. “And the first who would welcome this is Hamas, and that tells you everything.”
Earlier Sunday, before the main protest began, a group of Brothers in Arms activists staged a demonstration in the Haredi neighborhood of Mea Shearim in Jerusalem, demanding that the ultra-Orthodox share the burden of military service.
An ultra-Orthodox man in Jerusalem’s Mea Shearim neighborhood argues with a protester from the Brothers and Sisters in Arms movement, which is calling for equal military service for all, March 31, 2024. (Yair Palti / Pro-Democracy Protest movement)
“I believe, I believe, I believe in enlisting in the military!” some of the protesters sang into megaphones, to the tune of a popular religious song, as air horns blared.
Channel 12 news reported that water and eggs were thrown at the protesters from nearby buildings. Some clashes emerged between locals in the neighborhood and demonstrators.
A picture showed an Israeli flag being burnt as ultra-Orthodox men stood around it.
An Israeli flag is set on fire by a Haredi teen during a Brothers in Arms protest in Jerusalem’s Mea Shearim neighborhood, March 31, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/FLASH90)
Police issued a statement saying the protesters in Mea Shearim “illegally blocked a road, disturbed the peace and created a provocation and clashes with locals,” some of whom threw objects at the protesters.
Two people were arrested at the site of the demonstration, police said, without specifying if they were protesters or counter-protesters, adding that one was arrested for shoving a police motorcycle to the ground and the other for burning the flag of the State of Israel.
Lazar Berman contributed to this report.
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