Northern junction blocked as protesters gather for weekly anti-government rallies

Several dozen protesters block the Karkur Junction on Route 65, holding signs and chanting slogans that call on the government to make a deal to free the hostages in Gaza.

The demonstration near Pardes Hanna is the first in the weekly anti-government protests that have been taking place in dozens of locales across Israel, especially on Saturday nights.

The largest event is held in Tel Aviv on Kaplan Street. Some of the protesters regularly block the adjacent Ayalon Highways. Groups that splinter off from the main protest sometimes march down to King George Street to rally outside the headquarters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party.

Separately, thousands of people gather at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, near Kaplan Street, for a protest in support of the captives. It is organized by the Forum of Hostages and Missing Families, which says the demonstration is nonpartisan. Speakers critical of the government’s failure to retrieve the hostages are featured, as they call for ministers to reach a deal or resign.

Additional protest rallies are held in Jerusalem, Haifa, Karmiel, Rehovot and the Amiad Junction in the Galilee.

At the Tel Aviv Rally, the feminist group Women in Pink hold posters alluding to Netanyahu’s speech at the US congress last week. “A good speech won’t save them, a deal would,” declare the signs.