Man arrested after Netanyahu backers hurl oily substance at anti-government protesters, injuring 85-year-old

8 February 2026, 2:40 am

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Police say they detained a Beersheba resident in his 50s last night on suspicion of assaulting anti-government protesters who were calling for a state commission of inquiry into the failures surrounding Hamas’s onslaught of October 7, 2023.

Footage posted to social media and accounts to Hebrew media show that multiple people arrived at a protest site in a car on which “Leftist traitors” in written in big writing, and poured a substance in their direction. Demonstrators have said it was gasoline, while police say it was oil.

Retired Ben-Gurion University Associate Professor Haim Marantz, 85, tells Hebrew media that he was lightly hurt in his eye in the incident and taken to Soroka hospital after being hit by the substance. He says the man arrived and yelled “Only Bibi” — referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.