Car burns near Netanyahu’s home as activists torch dumpsters; PM: Protesters like ‘fascist militias’

Activists torched dumpsters and tires near Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem, with the fires accidentally burning an IDF reservist’s car. The incident led to condemnations from across the political spectrum, with Netanyahu himself saying the protesters acted “like fascists.”

Wednesday’s blazes, which caused locals to be evacuated from their homes, were ignited on the morning of a “Day of Disruption” calling for the government to negotiate a deal to release the 48 hostages held by terror groups in Gaza. Other groups of protesters gathered on Wednesday morning and a series of rallies was held throughout the day.

Organizers of those demonstrations disavowed the fires, though Netanyahu’s allies were quick to link the blazes to the protest, and accused Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara of “selective enforcement” of the law. Opposition lawmakers likewise condemned the fires, while also condemning the government for not striking a hostage deal.

Masked activists lit the fires early in the morning, causing recycling bins and tires to go up in flames in Jerusalem’s Rehavia and Givat Ram neighborhoods as residents were waking up and beginning their day. Police said in a statement that the fires damaged several cars and that residents were evacuated from nearby buildings, though nobody was hurt.

A car burned in the fires belonged to a couple, Maj. (res.) Yoav Bar Shai and Tamar Bar Shai, who have three young children, including three-month-old twins. The father of the family has served over 250 days of reserve duty in the IDF and is set to head to Gaza for another tour next week following the latest mass round of call-ups.

“Our car is gone. We support the hostages and the families, but this causes hate,” the mother, Tamar Bar Shai, was quoted as saying by Channel 12 news.

Speaking to the Ynet news site, Bar Shai said three car seats for the children were burnt, after her husband tried to move the car before it went up in flames.

“The tree started to catch on fire and the whole building adjacent to us was evacuated. People were taken out to the street in their underwear due to the danger,” she said, lamenting that she would have to drop off her kids at daycare on foot this week.

Her husband, Yoav Bar Shai, later told Channel 12 that he was “not angry with anybody.”

“They didn’t deliberately set the car on fire,” he said, explaining that the blaze spread from a dumpster that was set alight. “It was an act of stupidity,” he says. “Everyone does stupid things, and this shouldn’t be inflated into some political thing.”

He added that “someone just told me that, on the news, a family of hostages apologized for this happening. That pains me. They really do not have to apologize. We have to apologize to that family.”

He said he was very grateful that a large sum of money was raised to cover the cost of the torched car, saying, “that’s far more than it’s worth.”

“I’m going to reserve duty strengthened by that story. I feel that I have support, not just from my family and my incredible wife, but from all the people of Israel,” he said.

Another Rehavia resident, Talya Levavi Ehrlich, told Channel 12 that around 6:30 a.m., tires were burned in several spots near her home, causing smoke to come in through her window.

“One of the firefighters said that had the trees not been wet from the night’s dew, the house could have been burned as well,” she said. “I don’t understand why a mass protest must happen in a residential neighborhood with narrow roads.”

In response, a statement from police slammed “criminality under the guise of protest” and said the fires “represent a red line.”

“These actions have nothing to do with lawful protest, they are the acts of lawbreakers behaving like criminals,” the statement said, also chiding media outlets that “choose to portray such actions as legitimate protest.”

In the wake of the incident, a group of protesters set up a fundraising page for the family, and within a few hours, NIS 200,000 had been raised — enough to purchase a new car, car seats, and toys for the children.

Netanyahu issued a lengthy video statement on Wednesday evening about the arson attack, in which he claimed that the protesters were acting “exactly like fascists.”

The premier did not differentiate between the arsonists and the main protest groups, which were quick to distance themselves from the attack and offer support to the impacted family.

“In a democracy, demonstrations are legitimate,” said Netanyahu. “But what’s happening in the funded, organized, political protests against the government, which have broken every boundary — they vandalize property, block roads, make millions of citizens miserable, chase after elected officials and their children, to kindergartens and schools.”

“They threaten every day to murder me, the prime minister, and my family, and they also commit arson,” Netanyahu claimed. “They said they would surround my house, the Prime Minister’s Residence, with a ring of fire — just like fascist militias.”

He identified Bar-Shai as “the grandson of Yaakov Neeman, who was a wonderful minister of finance and justice in Israel.”

“He has three daughters. They burned his car, and now his wife cannot take the children around,” Netanyahu said, adding: “And then they say they’ll volunteer to help buy a new car. Don’t do us any favors. Don’t make us laugh.”

“You speak about democracy? You speak and act exactly like fascists.”

The premier insisted that police were not enforcing the law and demanded that they must quickly take a harsher approach toward protesters.

Reacting to Netanyahu’s comments saying the protesters were acting “like fascists,” Ofer Braslavski, the father of hostage Rom Braslavski, said on Wednesday night, “Shame on you, prime minister. I will not let you bring my son back in a bag. Shame on you.”

Early Wednesday evening, law enforcement announced that two men had been arrested on suspicion of setting trash bins on fire near Netanyahu’s residence.

The two suspects — in their 60s and 80s — were arrested by detectives in the Jerusalem police’s investigations and intelligence unit.

Both suspects were transferred to the capital’s Moriah police station for interrogation. The attorney for one of the suspects, who is aged 83, said his client had nothing to do with incident.

Following two days of mass protest in support of a ceasefire and hostage-release deal in recent weeks, protest groups had said they planned to start showing up at the homes and on the official itineraries of government officials in a bid to pressure them to agree to a deal. Government ministers have criticized those efforts and, following the fires, stepped up their condemnations.

“There is only one term for what is happening this morning: terrorism,” declared Justice Minister Yariv Levin. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir likewise decried “the wave of terror arson this morning near the prime minister’s home.”

Several cabinet members sought to blame the arson on Baharav-Miara, the attorney general, who has clashed with the coalition over its more divisive policy proposals, and whom the government has sought to oust in a process the High Court has deemed illegal.

Levin charged that Baharav-Miara is responsible for the fires because she “dictates criminal selective enforcement.” He also blamed “the High Court justices who stand by her and try to force her continued tenure on the government and the entire public.”

In a post on X, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana insisted that “the despicable criminals who set Jerusalem ablaze today and seek to set the entire country on fire would have been arrested and punished to the fullest extent of the law if they had set fires near the home of Mrs. Baharav-Miara, one of the High Court justices, or the state prosecutor.”

However, “the system responsible for law enforcement has been hijacked by a pyromaniac who has not the slightest connection to the rule of law,” Ohana wrote.

ישראל היא מדינת חוק ואסור שתהיה פה אנרכיה. חובה לנקוט יד חזקה כנגד הפורעים האלימים ששורפים רכבים וחוסמים כבישים. האויב חוכך ידיו בהנאה מול התמונות האלה ואסור לנו לתת לזה לקרות. pic.twitter.com/iI4aFAPjsC

— Miki Zohar מיקי זוהר (@zoharm7) September 3, 2025

Sharing a picture of a burned bin and car on X, Culture Minister Miki Zohar called for taking a “firm hand” against “violent rioters,” arguing that “the enemy is rubbing its hands with pleasure at these images, and we must not allow that to happen.”

Opposition leaders also came out against the fires but voiced support for protests for a ceasefire and hostage-release deal.

“I condemn the torching of vehicles in Jerusalem, but I condemn much more a government that abandons hostages to their deaths in Gaza,” posted Opposition Leader Yair Lapid on X.

Blue and White-National Unity chair Benny Gantz said, “The protests and solidarity with the families of the hostages today are a democratic right and a moral duty of every citizen — burning vehicles and any form of violence, by an unrepresentative minority, does not advance the return of the hostages and only harms the determined and important public struggle.”

The groups organizing Wednesday’s protests distanced themselves from the fires, the Kan public broadcaster reported, saying they were not part of the day’s schedule of demonstrations, which are scheduled to begin in the afternoon.

In the morning, protests were also taking place elsewhere, including outside the home of Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, accusing him of failing to secure an agreement to bring back any hostages since becoming the chief Israeli negotiator on the matter earlier this year.

“Complete failure,” the protesters said in a statement, accusing the government of capitulating to its far-right flank and “torpedoing” a proposal for a ceasefire-hostage deal that Hamas said it accepted weeks ago and that Israel hasn’t responded to, despite mediators saying it is almost identical to an outline previously accepted by Jerusalem.

A convoy of vehicles also set out from Latrun toward Jerusalem to call for the captives’ release.

מפגינים התבצרו על גג הספרייה הלאומית הסמוכה לכנסת | תיעוד@YCiechanover pic.twitter.com/jvgolcWnYC

— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) September 3, 2025

Protesters also ascended the roof of the National Library in Jerusalem, draping large banners reading, “You have killed and abandoned” across a photo of Netanyahu.

שוטרים עלו על גג הספרייה הלאומית בניסיון לפנות את המתבצרים במחאה לשחרור החטופים pic.twitter.com/WoRUw38Yg9

— החדשות – N12 (@N12News) September 3, 2025

Kan reported that when an alert sounded warning of an incoming missile from Yemen, police at first did not allow the protesters to seek shelter inside the library, before reversing course and letting them in.

“We must commit an extreme act so that someone is reminded [to act],” one of the National Library protesters, Yael Kuperman, told Kan. “A state cannot abandon its citizens. The National Library overlooks the Knesset. We want to be seen.” Thirteen protesters were arrested at the scene.