Thousands of demonstrators gathered Sunday evening in front of the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the second demonstration in two days, with clashes with the police, AFP journalists noted.
Police used water cannons to clear a road blocked by angry protesters waving hundreds of Israeli flags and lighting fires. “Elections!” “, Netanyahu “must go!” » and “Bring back [les otages] NOW ! “, shouted the protesters in the middle of yellow smoke bombs, the color associated with the hostages held in the Gaza Strip.
Anger against the prime minister for his management of the country after the Hamas attack on October 7 in Israel has reached an extreme point, said Dana Rabfogel Shor, 44, from Tel Aviv.
“People are angry, they are tired, they want elections. They accuse Bibi [Nétanyahou] and the government who say they are not responsible for anything,” she explained, holding a large photo of her distant cousin, Itay Svirsky, killed on October 7.
“The people are asking the government to find solutions to free the hostages who are simply dying! “, Hagai Levin, a doctor involved with the families of people in captivity in the Gaza Strip, told AFP.
“The government should work to free them and if they can’t do it, maybe someone else can? “, he continued, “enough is enough, we need a government that works.”
“Bibi Netanyahu does not have what it takes for this job, he has been doing anything in recent years, he is dragging the country down, he must be replaced immediately,” said yet another demonstrator, Raphael Malinovize.
This gathering included demonstrators demanding the departure of the government and families of hostages held in Gaza by Hamas. Their organizations have warned that they will take to the streets in Jerusalem every evening for the next few days.
At the time of Sunday’s demonstration, Benjamin Netanyahu was giving a press conference. “Elections now, in the midst of war, would paralyze Israel for at least six months. They would paralyze negotiations for the release of our hostages […]the first to welcome it would be Hamas,” he declared.
The war was triggered by an unprecedented attack carried out from the Gaza Strip by Hamas on October 7 in Israel which resulted in the deaths of at least 1,160 people, mainly civilians, according to an AFP count established from official Israeli data.
According to Israel, around 250 people were also kidnapped and 130 of them are still hostages in Gaza, 34 of whom died.
In retaliation, Israel vowed to annihilate Hamas, which it considers a terrorist organization along with the United States and the European Union, and launched an offensive that left 32,782 dead, mostly women and men. children, according to a latest report Friday from the Hamas Ministry of Health.