Over 100 detained at hostage deal protests in past week, all ordered released by courts
Arrests accompanied by apparent escalation in police violence at demonstrations; regional commander said to have ordered police to send ‘everyone to the cells’
Police arrested over 100 protesters during the past week, amid an uptick in demonstrations calling for a hostage deal, the Detainee Support Organization said Friday.
The group, which also provides legal representation to people arrested at anti-government protests, said courts have denied all 56 requests lodged by the police to extend protesters’ detentions. Haaretz said five protesters were put under house arrest.
The Ynet news site said police arrested 110 protesters over the past week, 75 of them in Tel Aviv.
The report said 18 people were arrested in Tel Aviv on Sunday. They were all ordered released the next day.
The judge reportedly criticized the police for failing to bring significant evidence against any of the protesters, and neglecting to bring any evidence at all against one of them.
According to Haaretz, the deputy commander of the Lev Tel Aviv police station — near the site of many of the protests — was overheard at a demonstration on Monday saying that the regional police commander had ordered sending “everyone to the cells.”
Haaretz said police this week appealed just one court ruling to release a protester — a man who was violently detained by police on Wednesday for allegedly hurling a flare at officers.
The presiding judge, who watched footage of the alleged crime, reportedly said the police appeal had little chance of success.
One of those arrested during the week, Michal Deutsch — who, according to Haaretz report from early July, holds the national record in arrests at anti-government protests — was held at the Neve Tirtza Women’s Prison until Friday after she would not agree to sign off on the police’s demand she stay away from illegal protests for two months.
The Tel Aviv Magistrate court ordered her release on Friday, ruling she must stay away from illegal gatherings for a month and a half.
Growing police violence
The arrests were accompanied by an apparent escalation in violent police tactics at the protests.
Tom Simon, 35, who was arrested at a protest in Tel Aviv on Sunday, told the Ynet news site that “three people grabbed me by the arms and legs.”
“I was flung in the air,” he said. “They seized me aggressively and I fell to the floor.”
Simon said he and other protesters were detained for 24 hours until they were brought before a judge.
“It was clearly a sweeping decision,” he said, adding that police officers told protesters it was a “‘decision from above.'”
Police violently detain a protester after snatching his megaphone at the Tel Aviv demonstration to demand a hostages-for-ceasefire deal. pic.twitter.com/MNMQzHpQGV
— Noam Lehmann (@noamlehmann) September 4, 2024
Two Times of Israel reporters were also attacked by police officers while covering protests in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
Protesters demanding a hostage-ceasefire deal have held daily demonstrations on Tel Aviv’s Begin Street since Sunday, when the IDF announced it had recovered the bodies of six hostages who were recently murdered in Gaza. Smaller protests have also been held in Jerusalem, Haifa and elsewhere.
Organizers estimated that 300,000 people gathered in Tel Aviv on Sunday and an additional 200,000 took part in protests across the country. Subsequent rallies in Tel Aviv have drawn about 2,000 people each.
It is believed that 97 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 33 confirmed dead by the IDF. The onslaught saw thousands of terrorists storm southern Israel to kill nearly 1,200 people, sparking the war in Gaza.
