Thousands of protesters in Israel call for Netanyahu’s removal
By Guardian - Lorenzo Tondo in Jerusalem - Sun 31 Mar 2024
Demonstrators join families of hostages in cities across the country vow to persist until he is ousted as PM. Thousands of people across Israel have joined families of hostages to protest against the government and call for the removal of Benjamin Netanyahu, as the Israeli prime minister grapples with one of the most serious threats yet to his coalition.
The protesters in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, Be’er Sheva, Caesarea and other cities on Saturday demanded the release of those still held captive in Gaza and labelled the PM as an “obstacle to the deal”, vowing to persist until he leaves power.
A statement from his office on Sunday said the Israeli prime minister would undergo surgery for a hernia during a routine examination. Deputy prime minister and justice minister Yariv Levin will serve as acting prime minister while he is sedated.
The nationwide protests coincided with reports from the Egyptian TV station Al-Qahera, known for its ties to the country’s intelligence services, indicating that negotiations for a truce between Israel and Hamas were scheduled to resume in Cairo on Sunday.
“It’s been 176 days that I haven’t turned a blind eye to the thoughts and fear of what my son and the other abductees are going through,” said Shira Albag, the mother of the hostage Liri Albag. “The people of Israel won’t forget or forgive anyone who prevents a deal that would bring them [the hostages] back to us. After 176 days, 4,224 hours, the excuses have run out.”
Raz Ben-Ami, a former hostage freed nearly two months ago, said: “They [the hostages] won’t last there, no one can survive what they go through there, believe me.”
Protesters called out that they “will not stop until they’re all home”, chanting “enough killing, enough despair, the hostages are the most important thing”. Police used water cannon to disperse protesters and arrested 16 people.
The families of hostages have urged ministers, including Netanyahu’s political rival and war cabinet minister Benny Gantz, to unite with other Knesset members in removing Netanyahu from power, accusing the PM of deliberately sabotaging efforts to secure the release of their relatives.
Einav Zangauker, the mother of Matan Zangauker, who is still held in Gaza, said Netanyahu’s handling of the hostages situation had been “incomprehensible and criminal”.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu, after you abandoned our families on October 7, and after 176 days when you didn’t bring a deal [for their return], and because you are continually engaged in torpedoing a deal, we have realised that you are the obstacle to the deal. You are the obstacle. You are the one who stands between us and the return home of our loved ones,” she said.
“If we don’t immediately act to move you away from the steering wheel, we won’t get to see our loved ones returning home alive and fast, and we won’t get to see our dead returned for burial in Israel […] So today we are compelled to begin a new stage in our struggle.”
On Saturday evening hundreds gathered outside Netanyahu’s private residence in Jerusalem, and on Sunday another mass protest was expected in the city, with some planning to camp in tents near the Knesset.
“If the families knew how small the gap is, which Netanyahu is refusing to close in negotiations with Hamas, they would explode,” said Amos Malka, a former head of the Israel Defense Forces’ military intelligence directorate who was among the speakers at the rally in Tel Aviv. “This is more evidence of his unsuitability to serve.”
The war was triggered in October when Hamas killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in an attack in southern Israel. The militant Islamist organisation also abducted about 250 people. Israel believes about 130 of these remain in Gaza, including 34 who are presumed dead.
The military offensive launched by Israel after the October attack has so far killed about 32,705 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to local health authorities. A relentless bombardment has reduced swaths of the territory to rubble, displacing more than 80% of the population. At least 75 people were killed overnight in new Israeli strikes, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory.
Netanyahu is grappling with another serious threat after Israel’s supreme court ordered an end to government subsidies from Monday for many ultra-Orthodox men who do not serve in the army – with his coalition split over their military enlistment.
The ruling follows a series of delays by the government in presenting a proposal to the court aimed at enhancing the military enlistment of ultra-Orthodox men, who have historically been exempt from conscription.
As Israel’s armed forces continue to wage a nearly six-month-old war in Gaza in which 500 soldiers have been killed, legislators from the government and the opposition have voiced a stance that places the onus of heightened military service obligations on the Haredi community, rather than imposing additional duties on those already in service.
The two ultra-Orthodox parties in Netanyahu’s religious-nationalist coalition, United Torah Judaism and Shas, denounced the ruling as a “mark of Cain”.
If the ultra-Orthodox parties left the government, the country would be forced into new elections, with Netanyahu trailing significantly in the polls.