Hundreds of protesters against the far-right government’s planned judicial overhaul gathered outside a Petah Tikva police station Monday evening, after an activist was detained at home and questioned over alleged plans to carry out violent activities. Following a call from the reservists’ organization Brothers and Sisters in Arms for activists to protest at the police station, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the police station.

Several hundred protesters outside of Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s home in the city of Modi’in, Tuesday morning, June 27, 2023 (Photo: Brothers and Sisters in Arms)

Though the activist, Itzik Medina, was released after a short time, flag-waving and vuvuzela-blaring protesters continued to demonstrate through the city, warning that the arrest was another step toward an Israeli dictatorship and blocked several streets. “What happened tonight could happen to all of us,” Medina said to the crowd assembled outside the station, shortly after his release. “They came to my home and they simply picked me up.”

“We warned it would happen, the writing was on the wall,” read a message circulating on protest WhatsApp groups, shortly after Medina’s detention. The message accused racist National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who has pushed the police to come down harder upon the 25-week-long anti-government protest movement, of sending police officers to make preventive arrests. Medina similarly blamed Ben Gvir or the Shin Bet security service for his detention, saying he believed the police were only “an emissary.”

During the demonstration, a man drove his car into the protesters and a woman was injured and taken to the hospital. The police said they arrested a 53-year-old resident of the city shortly thereafter. In a separate incident, a man pulled a handgun on a protester.

On Tuesday morning, several hundred protest outside of Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s home in the city of Modi’in against the judicial reform legislation. The demonstration comes in response to the far-right coalition’s ongoing efforts to pass legislation aimed at narrowing the grounds for reasonable doubt in legal proceedings. The protesters, who are members of Brothers in Arms, blocked streets with wired fences as well as set up a display that they called “dictatorship sausage from the Levin deli” and set tires on fire, causing traffic. At least sex arrests were made, and clashes between the demonstrators and the police ensued.

Also on Monday, around 300 Israeli military doctors in reserve units told the defense minister that they will refuse to serve if the government pursues fascist legislation that would see the highest court stripped of most of its powers. In a letter to the defense minister, published by Hebrew media, doctors said they could not continue to volunteer for service when the government was “violating the basic contract between us and the state.” On Saturday night, hundreds blocked the Ayalon Highway in Tel-Aviv as protests throughout Israel against the government entered their 25th week in a row.

Related: https://maki.org.il/en/?p=31044