Thousands of protesters block streets in Tel Aviv and clash with police

/ June 24, 2012

Police arrested 85 demonstrators after thousands people converged in and around Tel Aviv’s Habima Square on Saturday night, protesting the arrest on Friday of Daphni Leef, a leader of last summer’s social protest movement. Among the arrested activists: a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Israel. It’s was the most violent encounter between social justice protesters and police since the protest movement began last summer, against what they said was police brutality at a protest the day before.

The protesters blocked one of the city’s main streets Ibn Gabirol Street north to Rabin Square, before moving and blocking Ayalon highway. Around 20 demonstrators were removed by police after breaking into branches of Hapoalim, Leumi and Discount Banks, and later also managed to halt traffic on the southbound lanes of the Ayalon highway.


Activists confront with police during a protest against the Israeli government and for social justice in Tel Aviv,
“Together we’ll defend the Democratic sphere” June 23, 2012 (Photo: Activestills)


Under the slogan: “Emergency protest! Returning power to the people,” “We are the opposition”, demonstrators confronted the police, some of them from the elite Special Forces unit.  The protesters knocked over trash cans and shouted chants criticizing Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Saturday night protest took place a day after police arrested protest leader Daphni Leef and 12 others at a demonstration Friday, during which activists attempted to re-establish the protest camp on Rothschild Boulevard that served as a symbol of the 2011 summer protest movement. Leef was also at Saturday night’s protest, where her arm was heavily bandaged from an injury she said she suffered during her arrest. Leef also said the incident left her with two bruised ribs.

MK Dov Khenin, who took part in the weekend’s protests, slammed the Israel Police’s treatment of social justice protesters on Friday and Saturday night. “The police is behaving has become a political repressive instrument of the government, against all groups that protest against it. We saw on Rothschild Boulevard how the police are serving the government rather than the law.” he said. “The neo-liberal government is afraid and doing all in its power to block the renewal of the protest movement and the activists returned to the streets because nothing they were promised last summer was delivered, the situation only worsened.”

Earlier Saturday evening, several hundred people gathered on Rothschild Boulevard near the Barnoar club for gay teens, where two people died in a shooting attack three years ago.

Related:

                Key figure of social movement arrested along with 11 activists MK Khenin decry police violence

                Social activists returned to Rothschild boulevard city inspector confiscate tents

Related posts