From the Liveblog of
Saturday, October 19, 2024
Hundreds rally for hostage deal and against government at Tel Aviv protest
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About 500 activists gather for an anti-government, pro-hostage deal protest on Tel Aviv’s Begin Road, outside the IDF headquarters.
This week’s protest on Begin Road is unaffiliated with the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which resumed its weekly rallies at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square rather than Begin Road today. The Tel Aviv protests were paused in late September amid IDF Home Front restrictions due to the intensified fighting in Lebanon.
The Begin Road rally typically features overtly anti-government slogans and is attended by hostage relatives who are more outspokenly critical of the government.
“If there is no deal, we’ll burn the country down, this is the last chance,” protesters chant.
Several members of the crowd hoist banners from left-wing groups, including Breaking The Silence, which collects testimonies of alleged human rights abuses from soldiers who served in the West Bank; binational socialist collective Standing Together; and Israeli-Palestinian women’s movement Women Wage Peace, whose founder Vivian Silver was murdered at her home in Kibbutz Be’eri during the Hamas onslaught on October 7, 2023.
Using trucks, police cordoned off an area for the protesters in front of the Kirya army base. On the sidewalk, activists sell copies of “Mr. Abandonment,” a compilation of essays by public intellectuals and hostages’ relatives criticizing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
A woman reads out the Home Command’s directions in case of a siren, reciting the its mantra: “remember, the Home Command’s instructions save lives.”
“A deal also saves lives,” she adds.
The Times of Israel Community.