Police drag away, detain protesters who block Highway 4 near Netanyahu’s Caesarea home

Police drag away and detain a dozen-odd protesters who briefly block Highway 4 near Binyamina. Some of the protesters splintered off of a demonstration in Caesarea near the private residence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Residents from Or Akiva, a stronghold of Netanyahu’s Likud party that borders on Caesarea, demonstrate on the shoulders of the road against the anti-Netanyahu protesters, who are wearing shirts emblazoned with slogans reading “You are the head, you are guilty” and “elections now.”

Holding a megaphone, a man from the Or Akiva counterprotest accuses the anti-Netanyahu demonstrators of being “traitors.” The anti-Netanyahu protesters chant “he destroyed the country” at the counter-demonstrators.

At the protest opposite Netanyahu’s residence, demonstrators march along Rothchild Street in the direction of his address on Hadar Street, until they reach a police barricade.

Josh Drill, a leader of the protest movement that began early last year against the Netanyahu government, tells the demonstrators: “Instead of ending the war and retrieving the hostages, Netanyahu is thinking on of himself and his political survival.” He urges the protesters to join a massive rally planned for Sunday in Jerusalem.

On a road connecting Or Akiva and Caesarea, a lone demonstrator holds up a sign that reads only “socio-political psychosis.” The man, Tzachi Livnon, 54, from Or Akiva is protesting against the anti-government demonstrators, whom he says are the psychotic ones. But many of them honk in approval as they leave the dispersing rally. Some of Livnon’s fellow Or Akivans, meanwhile, shout for him to “get lost,” mistaking him for an anti-Netanyahu protester.

“I think I need a better sign,” he says before he decides to walk back home.

????In Caesarea @IL_police barely let the march take off before trying to stop the anti-Netanyahu protesters, who for now sidestepped the cops.
(Benny Meshy) pic.twitter.com/1n1CwAKf0Y

— Noga Tarnopolsky נגה טרנופולסקי نوغا ترنوبولسكي (@NTarnopolsky) March 30, 2024