Social justice movement leader Stav Shaffir was among the twenty three arrested Saturday night during the demonstration against plans to remove protest tents in south Tel Aviv’s Hatikva neighborhood. Hundreds of people, among them Hadash and communist activists, took part in a march that began at Gan Hatikva and proceeded toward Yigal Allon Street. Police said the gathering was illegal. The evacuation was scheduled to take place on Sunday morning.

While detained in a police van Shaffir posted a message on Facebook: “Many people who have homes protested tonight together with those who don’t. We have been fighting together for six months already for our state’s future. It’s not easy, and it will only become harder and harder, but in the end we’ll see a good place here, a truly good place, for all of us. Amen. “

Activists demonstrated at Hatikva neighborhood, yesterday noon (Photo: Activestills)

The protesters chanted slogans against Tel Aviv Labor party Mayor Ron Huldai and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, held signs calling for “housing for all,” and blamed police for using excessive force to disperse the protest.

One of the protesters, who along with his wife and four children, has made the tent city his home for the past several months, said that the protest was against “the inflexibility of the municipality – this is a lot of rage here.” Another tent city resident says the protesters have no intention of giving up and would “fight the eviction until the end.”

MK Dov Khenin (Hadash) strongly condemned the police’s conduct at the demonstration, calling it “violent.”  “The tent city in Hatikva neighborhood does not exist by way of protest but due to lack of choice. The role of the municipality is to find solutions for them… I call to prevent the evacuation of the tents and to immediately release the detainees,” said Khenin.

In a press release publicizing the protest, organizers said: “The Hatikva tent encampment has served as a home for the past six months for single mothers, families, parents, children and the elderly – homeless and the direct victims of the establishment’s unsympathetic and irresponsible policies.” The statement slammed the government for evacuating the encampment without providing a plan for alternative housing for those living there. “Today we will all come to support the residents of the encampment and say to the prime minister: ‘In the State of Israel, a person will not be tossed from street to street – no evacuation without housing solutions.'”