Israel Police barred protest organizers from holding photos of killed Gazan children or using the words “genocide,” or “massacre” despite prior assurances to the High Court that it would allow “controversial” signs. Cops conditioned approval for an anti-war protest this coming Thursday in Tel Aviv on the requirement that “no images of children or babies from Gaza” be displayed. This despite the exhibition of hundreds of photos of killed Palestinians children in Gaza during the protests held Saturday night in Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa and Friday afternoon in Jaffa at a demonstration against war and occupation sponsored by Hadash.
Hundreds of anti-war protesters, among them several Hadash activists, holding photos of killed Gazan children during the demonstration held on Tel Aviv’s Begin Street near the army headquarters, Saturday evening, April 19, 2025 (Photo: Zo Haderekh)
In a letter sent on Sunday, April 20, to organizers and published by Haaretz, police also tried to preemptively prohibit demonstrators from waving signs with the words “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” on them. In May of last year, while responding to a petition from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) regarding the confiscation of signs deemed “incendiary” at protests, police said officers on the ground are “not instructed to limit the content of the protest” nor limit the content of signs. But in practice, officers regularly seize signs at anti-war protests and often carry out widespread brutally arrests. Earlier this month, police detained 23 protesters at an anti-war demonstration in Haifa minutes after it started, tearing away signs that read “Stop bombing aid convoys”, “Stop starvation” and “Stop the genocide.” A few days prior to the protest in Haifa, cops detained seven activists in Jerusalem who had been partaking in a similar display during a protest, confiscating their placards.
On last Saturday evening, thousands protested across Israel calling for the release of the hostages in Gaza and against the war and the far-right government. Freed hostages and members of hostages being held in Gaza called to bring back the hostages and ending the war, on the last day of Passover, amid a wave of tens of thousands of reservists calling on the government to end the Gaza war.
Omri Lifshitz, son of captivity survivor Yocheved Lifshitz and slain hostage Oded Lifshitz, speaking to several thousands of anti-government protesters on Tel Aviv’s Begin Street near the army headquarters, said “the government is prisoner in the hands of the extremist messianic circles.” “Those who sanctify land will never measure up to those who sanctify life,” he says. He expresses fear that Israel’s renewed war against Palestinians in Gaza will kill the remaining living hostages and quash any hope of returning the dead ones’ bodies. “It’s clear to everyone that withdrawing from Gaza and ending the horrible war would have brought back the bodies many months ago,” he added, calling for “retreat from Gaza now and forever.”
Yotam Cohen, brother of captive soldier Nimrod Cohen says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies will see “no quarter for these deeds.” “We will remember forever. We’ll remind the next generations that at a time of war a government of horrors, haters of Israel, worked to sacrifice citizens and soldiers.” “Netanyahu is incompetent and incapable of being the prime minister of Israel,” he says.
At the same time, hundreds of protesters expected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to attend a Mimouna celebration, the Moroccan-Jewish festivities following the end of Passover, at the Mazor moshav in central Israel. Police forces deployed trucks to block the protest, and cavalry and Border Police officers who arrived at the scene confronted and attacked the protesters. According to testimonies, police entered the private backyard of a house in the moshav and removed protesters. The homeowner told Haaretz: “I hosted a Mimouna celebration in my house, and police just entered my private property – without a warrant – and removed people from there and arrested one of them. I am simply shocked.” Because of the protests Netanyahu canceled his planned participation in the Mimouna event.
Related: https://maki.org.il/en/?p=32601
