Cops clash with Tel Aviv protesters on 4th night of rallies demanding hostage deal

Demonstrations held outside homes of 8 government ministers as pressure grows to ink an agreement; ToI reporter among those shoved and hit by police at Tel Aviv demonstration

By Noam Lehmann and ToI Staff 5 September 2024, 1:45 pm Edit
People attend a rally demanding a ceasefire deal and the immediate release of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip in Tel Aviv, September 4, 2024. (Ariel Schalit/AP)
People attend a rally demanding a ceasefire deal and the immediate release of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip in Tel Aviv, September 4, 2024. (Ariel Schalit/AP)

Violent clashes between Israel Police and thousands of demonstrators brought to an end the fourth consecutive night of anti-government, pro-hostage deal demonstrations on Tel Aviv’s Begin Street on Wednesday.

A group representing people arrested at anti-government demonstrations said at least four protesters were arrested.

Police announced the protest was a public nuisance and that drums and megaphones would be confiscated, despite it being an hour before sound pollution laws kicked in.

They shoved protesters, violently detaining one after snatching his megaphone, even though he wasn’t using it.

One officer shoved a Times of Israel reporter trying to capture the arrest on video, hitting him on the side of the neck and knocking the phone out of his hand.

It marked the second time in three days that such an incident had taken place after an officer placed his hand on the throat of another Times of Israel reporter and shoved him backward at a Jerusalem protest on Monday.

Mass protests erupted on Sunday after the IDF recovered the bodies of six hostages from Gaza the night before, all of them executed by their Hamas captors just days earlier.

The Hostages Families and Missing Persons Forum, the main group representing hostages held by terrorists in the Gaza Strip, said in a statement: “The ministers of the Israeli government bear the joint responsibility for the fate of the abductees who were abandoned on October 7 and have been languishing for 334 days in the captivity of Hamas.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has faced mounting accusations that he is avoiding agreeing to a deal with Hamas to free the hostages in exchange for a ceasefire in order to satisfy far-right elements in his coalition who have threatened to bring down the government if Israel ends the ongoing war before Hamas is destroyed.

War erupted on October 7 when Palestinian terror group Hamas led a devastating cross-border attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people, during which terrorists abducted 251 people to Gaza.

Israel’s military campaign in response aims to destroy Hamas and free the hostages.

In Tel Aviv, the protest eschewed speeches for angry chants

After protesters marched toward the southern perimeter of the rally’s allotted area, police officers stationed there pushed them back, yanking a man out of the crowd and tossing him to the ground.

Protesters receded and lit a bonfire some 20 meters north of the perimeter.

They chanted “Ben Gvir is a terrorist,” referring to National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who is in charge of the police, and “Where were you in Sde Teiman?” referring to the police’s failure to arrest members of a far-right mob that stormed the southern IDF detention facility on July 29 after military police officers detained reservists there of suspicion of having sodomized a Palestinian inmate.

There were also protests outside the homes of government ministers, the Kan public broadcaster reported. Crowds gathered at the homes of Science and Technology Minister Gila Gamliel, Foreign Minister Israel Katz, Education Minister Yoav Kisch, Minister without portfolio Vice Prime Minister Aryeh Deri, Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli, Energy Minister Eli Cohen, Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer.

Earlier in the day, the Hostages Family Forum called on Netanyahu to remove his yellow ribbon pin, accusing the premier of faking his support for their cause while shunning his commitment to secure the release of their loved ones.

“The yellow ribbon pin is worn by anyone who wants to express unreserved support for the return of the hostages and sympathy for the families of the hostages whose loved ones have been abandoned to Hamas in Gaza for 334 days,” the forum said in a statement.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gives a press conference on September 4, 2024. (Screen capture/YouTube)

“The forum reminds the prime minister that leaders, public figures and citizens from all over the world wear the pin with the great hope that it will be removed as soon as possible, in anticipation of the return of the 101 hostages who were abandoned on his watch — the living for rehabilitation and the murdered and the dead for burial — and that wearing it indicates an uncompromising moral commitment to their return and not to abandon them,” the forum said.

“Therefore, the forum demands that the prime minister remove it from the lapel of his suit and stop using the pin as an illusion of support when in practice he is not doing enough to return them.”

Ninety-seven of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas during the October 7 terror onslaught remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 33 confirmed dead by the IDF.

Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 37 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.

Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.

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