Over a week after the start of protests in Israel, more than half a million Israeli people demonstrated on Saturday in various major cities. There were reports of minor altercations with the security forces. Late last week saw the start of the protests following the discovery of six of detainees’ corpses in the Gaza ruins.
The major protest location, Tel Aviv, had over five hundred protesters, according to the organizers. There were also notable protests in other cities including Haifa and Jerusalem, Haifa, while the neighborhood outside Benjamin Netanyahu’s private property in Caesarea was also loaded with angry people.
Following the major demonstration in Tel Aviv, protesters congregated close to the Ayalon Highway. They created a fire on Begin Street, which is close by, and obstructed the roadway. There had been altercations with law enforcement, and one individual was taken into custody. There is no indication that the protesters’ momentum will slow down in the coming days.
Captive relatives and rights organizations are calling on the people to continue blocking roadways in pursuit of a settlement following a week of protests. The leader of the influential Histadrut labor union in Israel demanded the full strike at the outset of the protests. With the goal of pressuring the administration to make an agreement for the freedom of the remaining prisoners, the strike got underway on Monday.
The union stressed how urgent a settlement had to be reached. Its leader declared that it is intolerable that political factors are preventing an agreement from moving forward.
Protests and the Far-Right
Senior representatives of Hamas claimed that the killings were caused by Israel’s failure to accept a ceasefire accord. According to a senior Hamas spokesman, Netanyahu is to blame for the death of Israeli six captives.
Bezalel Smotrich, the far-right minister of finance, had already voiced his disapproval of an agreement involving prisoners’ release. Smotrich also disapproved of the requirement that permits Israel to continue having its troops at the border between Egypt and Gaza. He said that Israel’s objectives of eliminating Hamas would be compromised by even the conditions backed by Israeli Prime Minister.
Smotrich gave no indication that, should such a deal go through, he would quit the coalition in his talks. Smotrich is the leader of the far-right Religious Zionist party, which makes up a sizable portion of Netanyahu’s coalition government.
The finance minister disagreed with the notion that the Israel’s military assault on Gaza is impeding the freedom of the prisoners. He maintains that freeing the prisoners and taking down Hamas are not incompatible objectives.
Smotrich made it clear that while he is looking for “a deal of surrender,” it is not one in which Israel gives up control of Gaza. Rather, he imagines a situation in which Hamas is driven from the Strip and compelled to give up their weapons, opening the door for the rehabilitation of a demilitarized Gaza. In the past, he has supported Israel’s return to total rule over Gaza and the restoration of Jewish communities there.
