1,019 empty chairs placed in Tel Aviv square to protest coronavirus dead

Over 1,000 empty chairs, each one with a rose on the seat, were placed in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square on Monday morning to protest the government’s coronavirus policies.

Each chair had a sign affixed to it stating: “Here coronavirus casualty number [inserted] from [locality] won’t sit. May their memory be a blessing.”

Organizers of the installation, the Standing Together social justice movement, told the Ynet news site that the chairs were used to highlight the empty places at tables during the upcoming High Holidays, and called for a public inquiry into what it said was the government’s mismanagement of the pandemic.

“The state has no orderly plans to address the issue, and the health of citizens is collapsing. An inquiry committee should be set up immediately to investigate,” said Alon-Lee Green, national director of the organization.

“The empty chairs symbolize the holiday table chairs that will remain empty as a result of the disease and the mismanagement of the health crisis,” he said.

In a statement to Channel 12 news, the organizers said there was “one chair for every person that the government was supposed to look after, but instead abandoned.”

Critics have accused the government of putting political considerations ahead of public health and standard economic practice throughout the pandemic.

The Health Ministry announced on Saturday that Israel passed the grim landmark of 1,000 deaths due to the novel coronavirus, becoming the 49th country in the world to do so.

The identities of the majority of those killed by the coronavirus have not been made public beyond their localities and age at death.

Only some of their stories are known.