High schoolers burn desks on key highway in demand for hostage deal; police detain around 20

Police detain around 20 high school protesters who set fire to desks on Tel Aviv’s Ayalon Highway during a demonstration for a hostage-ceasefire deal.

A 17-year-old was taken to the police station for questioning and a 35-year-old was arrested, police say. Gonen Ben-Yitzhak, a lawyer, disputes the police version, and says both were arrested.

The other teenagers were detained at the scene and went free after giving their details to police, says Ben-Yitzhak.

The protest comes one day before the start of the academic year. Dozens of teenaged activists blocked the key thoroughfare and set fire to several desks while demanding a general strike.

Demonstrators held a banner reading: “We will not learn to live with this. Strike now.”

“We are not willing to learn to live in a world in which the hostages are murdered in Hamas tunnels and the Israeli government does not even bother to discuss the deal on the table, and therefore we will not allow the school year to begin as usual,” the students say in a statement.

“Today we are high school students, but in a year or two we will all be in [military] uniform,” the teens say. “We want, and need, to know that when we go to the front, our country will stand behind us and uphold the moral and ethical contract on which we were educated.”

Students at dozens of high schools across the country are expected to strike tomorrow in a demand for a hostage deal and an end to the war.