From the Liveblog of
Saturday, December 6, 2025
About 1,000 protesters gather at Habima Square in Tel Aviv to rail against Netanyahu
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About 1,000 anti-government protesters gather at Tel Aviv’s Habima Square, including a large group that marched over from the Begin-Kaplan interchange.
Represented at Habima are members of disparate activist groups.
Brothers in Arms, a reservist protest group, sets up a large stand on the square’s south end to rail against the government’s bid to codify the Haredi exemption from military service.
On one side of the stand, activists from the left-wing Looking the Occupation in the Eyes group hold signs saying, “We were silent about the occupation, now we have a dictatorship.” About 100 other left-wing protesters hoist signs with pictures of slain Gazan children.
On the other side of the stand, the Movement for Quality Governance set up a tent calling for a state commission of inquiry into failures surrounding the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023 — a demand Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects. Suspended between two nearby trees is a large banner reading “Crime Minister,” with Netanyahu’s face; this is the name of a protest group that sprang up last decade, when the corruption charges against Netanyahu first came to light.
On a screen, a video plays accusing Netanyahu of arranging cash payments from Qatar to Hamas and salvaging both their reputations when they were both shunned by much of the Arab world — leading to the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, and explaining why Netanyahu is loath to allow a proper inquiry, according to the video.
MCing the rally is activist Shikma Bressler, who rose to prominence in the 2023 protests against the government’s bid to weaken the judiciary, which came to a halt with the Hamas onslaught that sparked the Gaza war.
“We are the people. We all can and must end the destruction of democracy and of the country,” she says, after the rally opens with Hatikva, the national anthem. “Together, we can all rebuild the State of Israel as a country we’ll all be proud of: Jewish, democratic, liberal, serene.”
The Times of Israel Community.