Protests calling for the release of hostages held in Gaza and against the far-right government took place across Israel on Saturday evening, November 2. The demonstrations follow the recent arrest of an associate of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other individuals suspected of leaking classified information.
Over 2,000 anti-war protesters gathered in Habima Square in central Tel Aviv for an emergency demonstration calling for an immediate end to the fighting in Gaza and Lebanon, and against ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza Strip. The organizers put out a call to protest because “if we don’t end the war, the war will be the end of us.” Hundreds of Hadash and Communist Party of Israel activists participated in the protest, among them CPI Secretary General Adel Amer and Hadash Deputy Chairwoman Noa Levy.
The protest was organized by the Peace Partnership, a coalition of peace and human rights organizations that came together after the war began. At the end of the event, the protesters march to Begin Street to join the weekly anti-government, pro-hostage deal rally.
The protesters on Habima Square appear to coalesce in two separate, roughly equal circles, with one dominated by the binational socialist collective Standing Together and the other drawing smaller left-wing groups.
MK Ofer Cassif during the demonstration held at Habima Square in central Tel-Aviv. Protesters hoist banners against the genocide in Gaza, November 2, 2024 (Photo: Zo Haderech)
The protesters at Habima Square chant slogans urging occupation troops in Gaza and Lebanon to “refuse to massacre,” and hoist banners with slogans such as “Stop the genocide in Gaza,” and “End the bloodshed.” The main speaker at the protest was Hadash MK Ofer Cassif. “Killing children is a war crime. Starvation is a war crime. Destruction of cities is a war crime and Netanyhau is a war criminal,” he said. Cassif agreed that “what we are seeing now in Gaza is nothing less than a genocide” which the “conscripted main Israeli media is covering up.” “We’re learning in real time how” the Holocaust could have happened, and nobody would speak up, says Cassif
Standing Together co-leaders, Alon-Lee Green and Roula Daoud told the crowd not to wait for the international community to intervene against the war.
“Only we can save ourselves from the fascist government,” Daoud says. “We’re here, and we’re staying here: Jews, Arabs, Israelis, Palestinians. “All of this is happening in the name of the settlements,” says Green, “the Israeli Ku Klux Klan.” He assails Israel’s media and Zionist left for “not telling us what is happening in Gaza.”
On Begin Road, a similar protest also calls for a hostage deal and accuses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of thwarting negotiations. “Netanyahu don’t forget, history won’t forgive,” they chanted. Earlier, Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan has been held hostage in Gaza for over a year, speaks at a press conference and decries what she calls a campaign “to paint the families of Hamas hostages as enemies and stall a hostage-ceasefire deal.” Her comments come after a judge revealed on Friday that several suspects have been arrested in connection with an ongoing probe into the alleged leak of classified documents from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office that harmed efforts to secure a hostage deal. “This is a knife in the back of the people,” she says during the press conference. Addressing Netanyahu, she says, “You have betrayed the hostages. You have betrayed us, and you’ve lost the last scraps of the mandate you had to manage the negotiations for a deal.”
Protesters march also from Jerusalem’s Zion Square to Paris Square, against the far-right government and calling for the release of the hostages held by Hamas. Anti-government activists carry a large banner criticizing Netanyahu amid the ongoing investigation. The banner reads, “A spy in my office? I didn’t see anything. Netanyahu – a useful idiot.” Other protesters wave yellow flags, representing the hostages, and banners against the war. Simultaneous anti-government protests take place around the country, as they do every Saturday evening, in locations including Tel Aviv, Beer Sheba., Rehovot, Kfar Saba, Karkur, Hadera and several junctions. Smaller rallies were held in Haifa by Partnership for Peace, Kiryat Gat and the Shaar HaNegev junction in the south, among others.
Related: https://maki.org.il/en/?p=32191
