Police brutally detained Saturday night, January 5, six anti-government protesters in Tel Aviv clashes as tens of thousands demonstrated in several locations across Israel in support of the return of hostages and against the war and the far-right government. Mounted officers ride into the crowd in front of the army headquarters at Begin Road in Tel-Aviv as protesters yell slogans against them. A policeman also snatches a megaphone from the hands of one protester and tosses it into the ashes of a bonfire the demonstrators had lit.
“End this fucking war”, protestors against the far-right government in the city of Nahariya, near the Lebanese border, Saturday night, January 5, 2024 (Photo: Protest movement)
Speakers at the weekly anti-government, pro-hostage deal protest in Tel Aviv call on to end the war in Gaza and secure a deal to bring the hostages home. Many protesters came from an earlier protest against fascism on the adjacent Begin-Kaplan junction with the participation of Hadash MK Ofer Cassif.
Shahar Mor, the nephew of slain hostage Avraham Munder, pleads in English for next US president Donald Trump to “stop arming the revenge campaign in Gaza.” Omri Lifshitz, son of captivity survivor Yocheved Lfshitz and well-known Left journalist and hostage Oded Lifshitz, also addresses Trump in English, asking that he “End this fucking war now.”
Below the speakers’ bridge, an anti-government group hands out red hats and signs adorned with that slogan, “End this fucking war now” in big white English letters — not unlike Trump’s “Make America Great Again” hats. After the speeches, protesters hoist burning torches and light a fire. They chant that “we are all hostages of the government of blood.”
Police also attacked a group of protesters against the war dressed in minimal clothing sit-in the center of Jerusalem’s King George Street, which police have blocked to make way for the march. The protesters cover their skin with Hebrew and Arabic writing that reads, “They are freezing to death in Gaza,” “End the genocide in Gaza” and similar messages.
Earlier police detained four activists as hundreds of demonstrators demanding a hostage deal marched near Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s home in Jerusalem.
The protest comes at the heels of Hamas releasing a video with signs of life from 19-year-old hostage Liri Albag. Marchers carry a banner that reads, “They are all humanitarian,” referring to the hostages. Negotiations for a release deal have focused on an initial stage that would see “humanitarian” cases freed first. The demonstrators accuse Netanyahu of torpedoing previous efforts to reach a hostage deal to safeguard his coalition, with far-right ministers opposing a deal.
In addition, thousands of anti-government protesters marched in Haifa, Rehovot, Kfar Sava, Kiryat Gat, Eilat, Ofakim, Beer Sheva, Netanya, Nes Tziona, Herzliya, Nahariya; Karkur, Elyakim, Tzemakh, and Haogen junctions, Shar Hanegev and several junctions in the Galilee, among them Gomeh, Amiad, Horfish, Eylon, Beit Haemek, Lohamei Hageta’ot, Kabri, Nahalal, Carmiel and Gofrit at the Negev.
Related: https://maki.org.il/en/?p=32362
