Hours before a new increase in the price of gas and electricity, hundreds Israelis took to the streets in Tel Aviv last night (Saturday) in a march held to protest the rising cost of living in Israel. As hundreds of protesters took to the streets, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to raise the price of gasoline by only 5 agorot (cents) a liter.  Gas prices had been expected to rise by 20 agorot a liter on Saturday. But the new prices coming into force at midnight on Saturday night mean a liter of 95-octane gas will now cost NIS 8 at full-service pumps and NIS 7.79 at self-service pumps.

Organizers titled the protest “From Slavery to Freedom,” a reference to the upcoming Passover holiday, which was also invoked by a banner reading “The ten plagues of Bibi” and two protesters wearing pharaoh masks. Other protesters gathered in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square, holding signs reading: “Israel demands social justice,” “Bibi must be replaced” and “We demand affordable housing.” Like the last summer’s protests, demonstrators on Saturday shouted for revolution and social justice as well as calls for Netanyahu’s resignation. Among the protesters: Hadash and Communist Party of Israel activists who carried red flags.

The social protest, yesterday, at Rabin Square (Photo: Activestills)

The march set out from Rabin Square, where a small encampment was set up earlier in the day with banners reading “We will no longer be friers [suckers].” Protesters made their way to the Tel Aviv Museum, and blocked a junction on Shaul Hamelech Street before being cleared out by police.

Weeks ahead of the protest, organizers handed out flyers saying “We’re returning to the streets,” posturing Saturday’s protest as a re-launch of the summer’s social justice protests that swept the country and brought hundreds of Israelis into the streets for several mass protests. The invitation to the protest read, “The cost of living, the disappearance of the middle class [and] the enlargement of social gaps are not dictated by the heavens; rather, these are the fruits of the obtuse policies of the government. There are better policies and more humane solutions; society demands a new, social set of priorities.”