Lapid vows to topple government in speech to 1,000 at Tel Aviv protest

Speaking to about 1,000 protesters on Tel Aviv’s Kaplan Street, Opposition chief Yair Lapid vows to topple the government in a fiery speech that draws some heckles from disenchanted audience members.

Protests have returned to Kaplan Street in recent weeks to rail against the government’s renewed push to overhaul the judiciary.

“There will be no compromise. We won’t bend over, we won’t give up and we will never enter the government,” yells Lapid, in an apparent jab at his erstwhile ally National Unity chair Benny Gantz who joined the government at the beginning of the war in Gaza.

Lapid says the government is afraid to dissolve because it knows it will lose in an election.

Yair Golan, head of The Democrats — a merger of the left-wing Labor and Meretz parties — mills around the audience, stopping for selfies with supporters.

A large contingent of Yesh Atid activists is present as well.

A few feet away from the crowd, some two dozen activists hold a more stridently left-wing protest, hoisting signs accusing the government of committing genocide in Gaza.

After Lapid’s speech, the Kaplan Street protest breaks up and joins the hundreds, including some hostage families, rallying in front of the nearby Begin Road entrance to the IDF headquarters, to demand a hostage deal.